Toguro Sakura
by Moonraker One
Summary: Eleven years have passed since Sakura was discovered to be the daughter of a powerful demon, and banished from Konoha. When she returns after more than a decade of being gone, and brings with her a deadly partner, will innocent lives be lost?
1. PROLOGUE

Toguro Sakura

By Moonraker One

A/N: By Toguro, I mean the _younger_ (ototo) Toguro. She's not the daughter of the retarded ani (older brother) Toguro. No, I don't own characters from Yu Yu Hakusho, or Naruto.

PROLOGUE – The Events of Eleven Years Prior

"We can't allow her to stay, you _KNOW_ that, Lord Hokage." The sentence that finally broke the silence came from none other than the person who'd been her team leader for what seemed like forever: Kakashi. Haruno Sakura couldn't believe it as she heard her own team leader pleading the case against her. Then again, she'd seen almost all of her own friends and the kids she'd grown up with turn their backs on her, so it didn't terribly surprise her when the one who'd given her the most of her training told the leader why she should be thrown out into the wilderness to die. "She is the daughter of a demon."

"Kakashi!" Iruka argued. He'd seen Sakura's abilities and of all the instructors present, he seemed to be the only one not protesting how his former student was being treated. "How can we just _throw her out_ to die?! She's demonstrated no malicious intent!" Hokage, as well as fifteen of the jounin from around the Konoha village turned to face him as though he'd just committed blasphemy. Small talk between instructors sitting adjacent to each other erupted, until Hokage himself spoke, to which all of the other talk ended.

"I know you all have mixed feelings about the discovery of one of our own students being the daughter of a demon," the calm leader of the village hidden in the leaves explained, "but Iruka is correct; she has demonstrated no malicious intent. Therefore, we must tread lightly on what we decide to be her fate. On one hand, we must take into account what happened to Yamanaka Ino last week; yes, she was put in the hospital after causing Sakura here to undergo a sudden emotional outburst." Upon hearing a pause in his leader's explanation, Iruka took it upon himself to further his argument.

"See? She's one of our own!"

"HOWEVER," Hokage did not hesitate to finish, "despite the fact that she almost killed a fellow genin, I will forgo the death penalty. That leaves one option: banishment. I've heard some of you argue it is not honorable to banish a young girl to die in the wild. Unfortunately, I must say that sometimes, we must forgo what is fair and honorable in order to protect the lives of the innocent. I hereby decide that Sakura, who no longer is allowed to go by the surname of Haruno, must forever be banished from this village. This decision is final; this meeting is adjourned." Two shinobi immediately behind Hokage grabbed Sakura by her arms, and began to drag her out of the room. However, she would not go easily.

"NO! NOOO! KAKASHI!" she pleaded for her very life. "DON'T LET THEM TAKE ME AWAY! _NOOOO!_" As she was being dragged away, she couldn't believe that her former team leader could stand there with a straight face while two jounin pulled her against her will towards the village gate. "SOME_BODDYYYYYY!_" Down the dusty streets of Konoha, all the people stood at their doorsteps and watched the girl writhe and scream of her fate, pleading for help from anyone. Only one person ran towards the two jounin holding her, wanting to help.

"NARUUUTOOOO!" she screeched as the blond-haired junior shinobi dashed out to help her. "HELP MEEEE!" Upon hearing his rapid footsteps towards them, the two jounin increased their speed, and due to their extra skill, kept a decent pace away from him. He slowly began to catch up, in desperation trying to reach her. He cared for her; to see her unjustly kicked out of the only home she'd ever had didn't seem right to him. Just as he was about to grab her, someone pounced on him and tackled him to the ground.

"NO NARUTO! YOU CAN'T GET INVOLVED! LORD HOKAGE HAS DECREED HER TO BE BANISHED!"

"Oh _YEAH_?!" he shouted, turning around to see who was on him. "I DON'T HAVE TO DO WHAT AN..." as soon as his eyes met with those of the person who'd tackled him, he found himself short of breath. "SASUKE?!"

"Naruto," the dark-haired Uchiha said, slightly calmer, "you can't fight them now! Our lord has instructed them to put her outside the village forever!" He tried to quickly get to his feet to run after her, but the Uchiha prodigy got up just as fast and locked him in a full nelson. "WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN TO YOU IF YOU FIGHT THEM?"

No words could have shocked Naruto more. "_WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN TO HER IF WE LET THEM KICK HER OUT?! YOU THINK SHE'LL JUST BE UNAFFECTED?!!"_ He screeched. "SAKURRAAAA!" He tried to break his captor's grip, but couldn't. Finally, he surrendered his struggle with Sasuke's grip after seeing the gates open, them toss his teammate and friend outside, and slam the massive doors shut.

"See? Nothing you could have done would have mattered. Sakura's still been banished."

Naruto nailed his teammate in the face with a hard right hook. He spat on the Uchiha's shirt as he slowly walked away. "I'll never forgive you, Sasuke," he warned his comrade, with tears gathering. "she was one of _us_, and now look what your kind has done."

It is sometimes said that time makes one forget. Neither Iruka, nor Sasuke, nor Kakashi or anyone else who had played a major role in the permanent banishment of a young girl—who just happened to be the daughter of an extraordinarily powerful demon—would forget that first night they went to bed, knowing that someone they'd cared for so much, had been abandoned.

Sakura herself, will never forget that first night she tried to steal sleep in the dangerous forests outside the village of Konohagakure. Also, she went on to regret the person she just happened to meet that night she tried to steal sleep in the forest.

"Hello, young one," he'd said, awakening her just after she'd cried herself to sleep. "Sorry if I awoke you." She shook her head and buried her face in her arms.

"No one cares for me anyway, why should you be sorry? After all, the reason they hate me is because I'm a Toguro, not a nice, normal, _human_ Haruno."

"But ah!" he exclaimed. "It's _because_ you're a demon's child that I care about you! There are wonderful things we can do together. How'd you like to somehow get revenge on the ones that turned their backs on you?"

Through her tears, her frown turned into an evil grin, which at the time seemed to fit her tear-stained face. "I'd love to get back at them someday," she thought out loud. "Who _are you_ anyway to care for me?"

He adopted an evil grin to match hers. "I've been called many things by many people," he explained. "for the sake our friendship though, you can call me Orochimaru."


	2. CHAPTER ONE

Toguro Sakura

By Moonraker One

A/N: The Village of the Storm does not exist in Kishimoto-san's manga. Thus, I'm creating it.

CHAPTER ONE – Eleven Years Later

BAM! Sakura dodged to the left to avoid a huge tree that fell, just barely missing her by a few inches. She looked all around her for Orochimaru's gigantic anaconda to come out of nowhere and take her by surprise. _Where _ARE _you, you bastard?_ she wondered to herself. _He CAN'T have just vanished!_ Just as she finished that thought, a rumbling noise gave her a few microseconds' warning time before his huge snake erupted from the ground just beneath her, causing her to completely lose her balance in midair, having leapt to try and get out of the way. She didn't have time to dodge properly and one of the snake's huge fangs punctured her right leg. Blood pulsed from the wound and she let out an intense screech as she landed on the ground in pain. Lying there, she had a few seconds to think before she rolled over to avoid him coming in for another attempt at gobbling her up._ THAT'S it, _she thought, _I'm finishing this before I lose any more blood!_

The snake, having gone about six hundred yards past her, coiled around and zoomed towards her again. _Hmm...thirty percent? Nah; too much. Twenty-five percent of my max should do for this poor summoned creature_. Analyzing how much of her maximum power she should utilize took only a brief instant, and she stood with fists clenched and her aura rising. As the snake whooshed even closer, her skinny arms and legs beefed up to about twice the muscle mass of a German body builder in the time it would take anyone else to blink. In fact, all of her body's muscles bulged outward as she increased her chi. Her clothes strained under the pressure of her newly-expanded muscles, and her black shorts already had ripped at the thigh; so much for expandable clothing. It was not magic that made her muscle mass rise, it was the fact that by increasing muscle mass greatly improved her ability to store her chi in her arms. Thus, a muscle mass increase of only ten percent made her about seventeen times more powerful. All that meant trouble for the snake as it closed in. Once it got within six feet of her, it opened its enormous mouth and prepared to make a meal out of her.

With one hand, she grabbed the upper jaw of the snake, and held the huge beast at bay with no effort. With her other hand, she formed a fist and drove it upward into the roof of the creature's mouth; the force of her uppercut blew a circular section out of the top of the snake's skull that was about eight feet in diameter. Bursting from under the skin of his summoned creature—that now lay dead with its brains in a thousand pieces scattered around it—the great snake shinobi landed on the ground beside his partner as her body resumed its normally skinny appearance at three percent of her maximum power, and her leg healed from the influence of her youkai (demon) blood.

"You're really quite powerful!" he said, appreciating her talents. "I'm glad I found you that decade ago! Are there any useful talents I _don't_ know about?" She grinned and put her arm around his shoulder.

"Nope," she replied, "expanding muscle mass, and that's about it. Other than fighting, I mean."

"We're getting ever-closer to our goal of invasion."

That thought expanded her grin. "You get to destroy Konoha, and I get to kill all those idiots who betrayed me. I think we're set."

Of all the jounin occupying the early morning restaurant in the village hidden in the leaves, none understood life better than a certain blonde-haired cell commander named Uzumaki Naruto. He'd been through his share of crap, and among his peers (which consisted mainly of the younger jounin), he managed to be the most respected. Maybe it was because he was the only one with the jutsus that specifically allowed him control over his inner Kyuubi, perhaps it was the fact that at sixteen he made it to chuunin, and at seventeen he made it to jounin; or perhaps, it was because he was the only one who could outlast the aging Gai in a drinking contest. As he sat before his morning ramen, he chatted small talk with Yamanaka Ino, a fellow jounin. "Yeah," he told her, "the spirit of the demon fox merged with my own, and for about eight months after that it was a big fiasco and everyone who remembered it—geez, I'm amazed there were still any _left_—got all pissed and were demanding blood. By now, though, I think I'm pretty much out of the water." She noticed him barely touching his ramen—a trait not usually displayed by him.

"Are you _actually_ going to eat?" her question struck him a moment after he'd heard it, bringing him out of a thought process.

"Yeah," he whispered, "I guess I still can't get over the dreams." She put her hand on his shoulder.

"You still remember that day?"

He pulled from his left pocket a flask containing his personal mixture of bourbon, whiskey, and wine, took a big swig, and then replaced it in his pocket. "Forgive me," he joked, "but I never eat on an empty stomach. Anyhow, what did you ask? Oh _that_..." He had fought bitterly for six years to purge the memory from his mind. After a while he just gave up on fighting the nightmares. "Every time I close my eyes; she's there. I _STILL_ wake up at three in the morning hearing her screams fading as they dragged her away. _You_ have any nightmares?"

She reached in his pocket and borrowed his alcohol flask and drank from it, but properly gave it back to him. "All I remember was, I pissed her off somehow, and she suddenly gets real muscular, you know? Blows me into a tree with one punch. I woke up three days later and they said she was gone. I guess I got off lucky." After finishing her discussion, she turned to notice Naruto devouring his ramen at an inhuman rate. "You really loved her didn't you?" The last question posed almost caused him to choke mid-bite on his ramen.

"Yeah," he said, muffled by the chewing. He finished his bite. "I guess I really did."

"You're halfway between human and Kyuubi," Ino joked, "she's the daughter of one of the legendary Toguro Brothers. I wonder what your kids would have looked like." Naruto put his money down to pay for his tab, and turned his chair to get up. As he was halfway up, a familiar little kid with even more familiar dark hair came dashing in.

"Hiya, Naruto-sama!" the kid chirped. One thing Naruto loved about this kid was how he spoke a bajillion miles an hour. "Howyadoingsensei? Wowwhat'sthatshinythinginyourpocket? CanIhavesomeofit? HeyIno-sama!"

Naruto chuckled a bit at the kid's hyperactivity. "Okay, for your three questions: one, I'm fine. Two, that's my personal drink, and three, no, you can't have it until you're twenty-one," he answered. "You ready for practice tonight, Nuuto?" Naruto smiled every time he saw the dark-haired son of Uchiha Sasuke. He remembered that Sasuke had taken Naruto's own name and truncated it by two letters and added an extra 'u' as a kind of peace offering to the jounin, but it would take far more to undo the damage dealt by his friend. Although he'd agreed to forgive Sasuke, and even went as far as to consider him a friend again, the image of a screaming Sakura had been burned into his memory forever. "Where's your father at, Nuuto?" Every time he saw the little bundle of energy, he couldn't believe that Sasuke had gotten married at the age of nineteen.

"I'm right here," he entered. Sasuke's son looked up.

"IgotpracticetonightatNaruto-sensei's place,daddy!" Sasuke ruffled his son's hair.

"That's wonderful, son, you know Naruto here's the best shinobi in existence," he boasted, with a severe touch of humility. "He's even taught your daddy here a thing or two about courage and honor." Naruto stood up from his seat. He smiled at the kid and changed to a vicious glare as he looked at Sasuke.

"I sure _FUCKING_ did," Naruto whispered too silently for the kid to hear, but Sasuke could easily pick it up. Without a further word he exited the restaurant.

Outside, he was greeted by a familiar sight: his old sensei, Kakashi. Even though the master was in his early forties, he looked quite a bit older due to the fact that his hair was gray. Naruto didn't right away know what the master shinobi wanted, but using his Kyuubi powers of psychic projection, was able to probe the mind of Kakashi, and among the dirty thoughts of the latest issue of his favorite book, was the latest news from the upper levels of jounin. Naruto hated the old bastards who still made the rules. Even if they were only a decade older than him, he considered them to be outdated. Kakashi could see the red streaks in Naruto's hair, representing the demon fox's influence, and still remembered the "incident" after the conclusion of the jounin examinations. "How are you," Naruto offered, breaking the ice.

"Don't worry about me," Kakashi replied. "Just make sure your students have the latest copy of the Hokage's latest orders before you commence with training later tonight." Naruto nodded and began walking away. When he passed by his former sensei, however, the copy ninja leaned over. "You know, you really should let go what happened a decade or so ago." Naruto looked over at his teacher with a slightly angry look; he found it harder to forgive his teacher than his former teammate.

"Don't tell _ME_ what to do," he reminded. "I'm NOT in your team anymore; I can hate Sasuke—and you—forever if I want to." He aimlessly strolled away.

"Who's our next target, sensei?" Sakura's question struck Orochimaru while he was still in the process of formulating his strategy. He managed to have more than one plan in mind, though, for any given moment, and it was how he managed to stay alive so long. Anytime plan A failed, he'd have plans B through D already prepared to activate; never did he enter a situation where he didn't have a backup plan.

The snake shinobi motioned his head towards the mountains to their left. "At the base of those mountains, where the forest ends," he explained, "is a village of about six thousand of the most powerful shinobi in existence. If we utilize their military forces, we should be able to overrun Konoha."

She seemed stunned. "Only six thousand?" she shrieked. "Konoha has at least six _hundred_ thousand!" He bowed his head; obviously, his young partner needed a lesson in military force.

"Yes, that's true, but they have very few jounin," he explained. "In fact, in their entire village, they probably have only three hundred upper-level, ninja in all, and the rest are chuunin and genin; they have lots of the younger ones. And if memory serves me correctly, they never put shinobi younger than ten out on the front line."

She raised an eyebrow. "That's an awfully low cutoff line for the minimum age of front-line war shinobi."

At her statement, he couldn't help but chuckle a bit. "_Low_?! That's nothing; I've seen villages so desperate for man power that ninja as young as _six_ were allowed to take the chuunin _and even_ the jounin exam. Sakura, you have much to learn." Taking into account his calculations on Konoha's military, she realized that even with the limits put in place, that still meant quite a bit more than they were going to have.

"So, even if we get this Storm Village's army on our side, that still leaves Konoha with about eighty thousand more than we'll have! And how do you expect them to side with us?"

Orochimaru looked left and right as if such a thing was a trivial matter. "Simple," he said, patting her left shoulder in support. "You're going to kill their kage."

"How do you propose I do that?"

"Their chuunin exam. Konoha isn't the only village that holds one. And, to make it ever easier on you, the Village of the Storm has a drastically simpler way of becoming a chuunin: all you have to do is fight six fellow genin and win, and then in a one on one fight with a jounin, draw blood."

"Draw blood? But Orochimaru, I can probably _kill_ a jounin with only thirty-five percent of my power!

Her sensei smiled wickedly. "See? I told you; easy."

So began part one of his plan. He knew the only way he was going to defeat the powerful village hidden in the leaves was if he had a military that made even the most hawk-like ninja frightened. The Village of the Storm was unique in the sense that, they had an incredible array of techniques that their foot soldiers had that no other shinobi-ruled village had. He had personally fought some of the upper levels that ruled divisions of ninja; they could manipulate their chakras in ways that no one else could. That's why Konoha was the first village to strike a peace treaty with them: they knew a war between the two would destroy both. Now that both villages had adequate time to prepare, knowing the nature of the two, he predicted that Konoha had softened its military program in the times of peace, while the Storm Village keeping its forces prepared to go on a moment's notice was a certainty.

Sakura, taking information on the village from Orochimaru, knew they had several guards at the front of the village. If she was found, it would be hell just trying to survive, let alone succeed. Thus, she waited in the trees near the edge of the forest, just outside of shouting range of the jounin guarding the front gate. Waiting, she hoped several ninja would come near her so she could steal their identities. Fortune smiled upon her, for she didn't have to wait long.

Of the group of three heading towards the Storm Village, the group's leader, a boy about five foot six and fifteen years of age, sensed a powerful ki presence nearby. "Stay sharp!" he hissed, lowering his arm as a warning. Drawing his kunai from his pocket, he formed a windmill shape out of his blades, and took aim at the shadowed silhouette approaching them from behind the shaded area of the forest. When he saw the skinny figure of Sakura, he kept his guard up. "Who're you?" he asked, adamantly.

She smiled. "I'm terribly sorry to disturb you," she said, feigning embarrassment. "I'm here to take the chuunin examinations but I've lost my way in the forest!"

He lowered his eyebrows, analyzing her. She didn't seem powerful, and her ki emissions were minimal, but something screamed at him, "Watch out!" He cleared his throat and lowered his kunai while still keeping them in attack mode. "Chuunin exam? You look like you're about twenty or so!"

"Yeah, that's what everybody notices right off the bat," she explained. "I've taken the exam about nine times, and I've never succeeded yet. Well, can you tell me what's the right way to the village?"

The boy chuckled a bit. "Yeah, we'll take you there," he offered. "Tarika here," he pointed to the girl behind him, "is about nineteen. SHE hasn't passed it yet either, after seven attempts, so I guess you're not in such bad shape after all! It's this way..." Instantly increasing her power from three to fifteen percent of her maximum, she punched him directly in his upper back after he stepped in front of her, the force of her blow blasting a seven-inch-in-diameter hole all the way through his upper torso. He died before he hit the ground.

"KINUROOOO!" the younger of his two female teammates shouted. Unfortunately for her, they were outside shouting range of the nearest guard, and Sakura could sense no other presences nearby. "YOU BIT..." Before the girl could finish her sentence, her neck was grabbed and crushed in one hand, causing instant death. The third girl, the oldest of the group, drew her kunai and shoved it directly into Sakura's chest, just above her breasts.

"DIE BITCH!" the girl screeched. Sakura looked down at the weapon sticking out of her, and with a simple increase in power of one percent, the slight muscle mass improvement shot the kunai out of her chest, where it lodged into a tree. Before Sakura's opponent could reach behind her to get it, she found herself lifted high in the air, and her spine broken cleanly in half on Sakura's left knee. She then set down the last member of the group, and began making hand signs with her hands. When she finished, she touched her left hand to the dead girl's face, her right hand to her own; the facial features, hair, and any other traits of Sakura's and the girl's head switched places, leaving Orochimaru's protégé with a flawless mask of the girl she'd killed, and the corpse with Sakura's.

"Perfect," Sakura whispered, her voice even having been changed to the girl's. Reaching in the corpse's pocket, she pulled out the paperwork and smiled.

"It sure is," Orochimaru whispered, having stolen the face and body shape of the boy.

"What do we do about the third member?"

"We say she succumbed to the tribulations of the forest. Flying leeches and vicious animals aren't indigenous to the forests surrounding Konoha." Their paperwork in hand and identities stolen from corpses, the sensei and student trudged on through the forest, towards the Village of the Storm, wanting only to get this phase of the plan done as quickly as possible.

* * *

NOTE: Chapter two WILL be a lot longer, I just wanted this chapter to end at this point.


	3. CHAPTER TWO

Toguro Sakura

By Moonraker One

A/N: I have a question that I'd like someone to answer me before the story starts: Since all of the other villages are "Village Hidden in (leaves, sound, grass, etc.)," for my fictional storm village, how do you say "Village Hidden in the Storm" in Japanese? I'd appreciate some help. I've been asked how Sakura can expand her muscle mass, and in turn, greatly increase her power. She's Ototo Toguro's daughter, she inherited it from him. There's your reason.

CHAPTER TWO – Beware of Demons Baring Gifts

At the front gate to the Village of the Storm, Sakura could see that it was quite a renowned village indeed. From the base of the mountain, all the way to three-fourths of the way to the summit, houses and other types of buildings were built onto rocky platforms carved out of the very surface of the mountain. Over the village, rain clouds gathered frequently, pouring rain onto the mountain. That was the way the village had gotten its name, for having thunderstorms significantly more often than any other area of the country. Because of the excess water, plants had to be grown inside so they wouldn't get drowned, and water was collected in wooden barrels all over the place, so the most money to be made was in the indoor agriculture. They had the best food of any of the villages, and also had the most exports to other nations. But it wasn't their food that made them famous and infamous at the same time.

It was their military. Although the other villages had quite a few more soldiers than the Storm Village had, none of the other villages had the skill. Shinobi growing up in this place had to enter the ninja academy regardless of what they wanted to be when they grew up, and had to be full-level ninja by age seven or else they were banished from the village forever. Chuunin examinations were conducted every year, and although it seemed easier to simply pit them against each other, they were taught war jutsus—jutsus designed for killing entire hordes of attacking ninja from just one blow—by the time they were eleven and were forced daily to do pushups over sharpened knives with an instructor's foot on their backs. Getting tired meant death for a junior ninja. Clearly, only the absolute best made it out of Storm alive. Ninjas were then forced, for the final aspects of the chuunin exam, to fight one on one with a jounin, where victory was determined by drawing blood from the upper level ninja. Often the upper levels killed or permanently injured their junior levels. Female shinobi were given the same training as their male counterparts, regardless of stature in the society; it was not rare to see female shinobi vastly superior to their male counterparts. In fact, a poll conducted by the Village Hidden in the Grass showed that an average _female_ Chuunin from Storm was on level with a _MALE_ jounin from Konoha, and even outclassed jounin of both genders from the bloody mist village. Orochimaru desperately wanted to enlist the help of Storm Village. Which meant, he wanted complete and utter control over them.

"Who're you two?" barked one of the guards of the main gate.

"Yeah, let's see your paperwork," his partner replied.

"I'm Hyuuga Kinuro," Orochimaru said, his voice mimicking that of the boy whose features he took. Reaching in his pocket he delivered a sheet of paper with the boy's picture on it.

"I'm Uchiha Tarika," Sakura quickly followed her master, her voice like that of the girl whose face and hair she stole. From her pocket she pulled the girl's papers and placed it into the guard's hand. The guards examined the paperwork, and the two in front of them, and seemed satisfied save for one slight problem.

"You had a third party member," the shorter guard noticed. "It's okay for you two to take the test alone, in fact that's the way we do it, but what happened to her?"

"Dead," Orochimaru announced, saying it before Sakura could say it. "Succumbed to the forest's wickedness."

The guards nodded. "Proceed." They opened the massive wooden gate. Not the same instant it opened did several hundred genin from all across the countryside turn to examine the two that walked into the doorway. Most of them seemed unimpressed, but that probably held true because Orochimaru did not seem threatening unless he had several of his more powerful jutsus active, and Sakura was her usual skinny self at three percent of her power. Deep down, she held a secret from her sensei, the great snake ninja: his maximum power was only forty-five percent of hers. She'd never shown him her true power or told him because she didn't think of how he'd take it. Just as she and he were ordered by a jounin to go to separate fighting rings in order for the chuunin exam to take place, a young man came up to Sakura after Orochimaru had walked away.

"Hasn't this been a long time," the mysterious boy said to her. "Your disguise is believable, but I can still see you."Looking at him, he didn't seem unique, being skinny and wearing loose, baggy clothing. His hair was a shade halfway between pink and black, looking almost reddish. He had her eyes, and nose, but seemed to get his mouth from his father's side.

"I don't know you," she uttered, and took a few steps away. Before she got too far, though, he spoke his next sentence.

"I know you, Sakura." She stopped dead in her tracks.

"I look at you, and want to say your name is..." she struggled for a name. "Tabuno?"

"Tabuna," he corrected. "_Toguro_ Tabuna. Your older brother." Her eyes widened; she wasn't aware her father had a son. It was his next sentence that really surprised her. "Older than you by about thirty years."

"_THIRTY _years?!" she shrieked.

He nodded. "It's true, although I do believe you're the stronger of the two of us."

"What was father like? I never got a chance to know him."

Tabuna bowed his head; what a memory to bring up. "He was a man of honor. Loved killing as much as any demon, but he had his honor. Died in the dark tournament. I remember you were born and were taken away from him, I doubt he ever got over it."

She had a simple request: "Prove you're my brother." Smiling slightly, he clenched his fists at his side. With a snort, he forced his chi outward at an enormous rate, rapidly increasing his power, causing his muscles to expand just like his father's trademark ability was. She could tell he was about equal to her at half power.

"I'm up to about sixty percent of my max here," he explained, right before letting his body return to its rail-thin self. "The kekkei genkai of the Toguro bloodline: a small increase in muscle mass translates into a massive increase in chi output."

"Okay," she admitted, "so you are in fact, my brother. _What_ are you doing here? You can't possibly be taking the Chuunin exam!" He shook his head.

"Nope, I'm not. I'm just here to referee some of the matches between the underclass ninja. What're you here for?"

"An army to exact revenge upon the village that shunned me." she lowered her tone of voice. "I can't reveal how I plan to do that." He strolled away calmly.

"Good luck on that accord. If I get to oversee a match with your friend in it, I'll be sure to be liberal in my judgment." After he'd gotten a good distance away, she proceeded over to a table where a jounin who looked like he'd been tortured one too many times took a glance at her paperwork and pointed her in the direction of the group she was to take the exam with. She managed to enter the part of the large inner arena area where she'd be pitted against six of the most powerful underclass shinobi of the Village Hidden in the Storm. Examining the power emanations of the junior ninja, she couldn't help but be impressed; although none came anywhere near her level of power, there were a lot that already were at the level of some of Konoha's chuunins. When she approached the group she was fighting, the oldest of the group looked her up and down.

"Well now," he joked. "Who's the scrawny girl? You need some meat on them bones, babe!" She wanted to power up to ten percent and blow his head clean off—which would have been a simple matter—but she kept herself calm. If given the chance, she'd easily prove to him that she had enough meat on her bones. The young man standing next to him tapped his older partner on the shoulder.

"Watch it, Ludo," he warned, "she's an Uchiha; I can tell by the markings on her face." Sakura was smiling on the inside; it was now she was glad the corpse whose face she'd stolen was an Uchiha escapee. Nevertheless, she hated the name Uchiha because it reminded her of Sasuke. Naruto had merely tried to rescue her, and the bastard prodigy destroyed that hope by tackling him. "Who are you anyway, girl?"

"Name's Uchiha Tarika," Sakura lied. "This is about the ninth time I've taken this exam."

"I hear ya," the fourth member of the group cried out. "I've been paired up with extremely powerful shinobi every year for the past six years, and they keep kicking my ass. No amount of training is enough!" A girl from the side, sandwiched in between the two boys older than her, spoke without lifting her head from its sleepy tilt.

"You should see how ignorant some of the boys are," she said, cutting off the boy to her left's conversation. "They think that they're so great. I've been training with a method that was forbidden in four of the five major villages." Sakura could tell that the girl had been learning the Art of the Fatal Sound Aura, which had been developed by the very first graduate of the "graduation exercise" that was conducted every year until fifteen years ago in the mist village. She could tell by the unique vibrations in the air surrounding the girl. The masters of the technique could learn to obliterate a human body simply by increasing levels of certain sound waves emitted in very ordinary, everyday sound patterns. Just from a rock dropping, for example, could be altered to sound as loud as a lightning strike or a cannon blast; and be concentrated in a small enough area to shatter molecular bonds in human bones and flesh. It had been outlawed by every major kage in almost every village. Still, there were a select few that could control it expertly. "It makes me stronger than a lot of the genin you'll see here. My name's Luuda; it's nice to meet you."

"Aw, quit blowing smoke, Luuda," the final member of the group cried out. "I don't care WHAT forbidden technique you got; I've been training under our kage." Sakura, after having gotten as good a glance as she could possibly get of the true powers of the five she was set to go against, one at a time, she saw down on the bench. It was only a second, though, before a jounin approached the group's resting area with a clipboard.

"KOJI LUUDA AND IKAZO HIKARU!" he announced, getting the attention of the girl snoozing while standing up, and the older boy next to Luuda's brother Ludo. "YOU TWO ARE THE FIRST UP!" At the upper level ninja's request, both the teenage boy and the sleepy girl stepped up from the resting area into one of the large fighting arenas. A large padded mat had been laid out on top of a fifteen foot by fifteen foot square, which itself was surrounded by a small fence-like barricade. "RULES ARE AS SUCH: DO NOT KILL YOUR OPPONENT IF YOU CAN HELP IT. DEFEAT IS A KNOCKOUT OR DEATH. VICTORIES CANNOT BE ATTAINED SIMPLY BY RING-OUTTING YOUR OPPONENT." Hikaru took to heart his training and the jutsus taught to him. He prepared for a massive, direct onslaught. He went to analyze her stance and noticed a surprising factor. Instead of getting ready, she had managed to put herself into a sleeping state while keeping upright, just like before.

"What _are you doing!?_" he cried. "You insult my training by sleeping? Fine; I'll put you to bed _FOR GOOD!_" He pulled his kunai out of his side pockets, and tensed his leg muscles. Using the momentum from a slight leap, he propelled himself at top speed towards her. He envisioned his blades striking off her head as he got ever closer. He was about six centimeters from her face when the pounding of his footsteps awoke her.

"H...huh...?" she uttered, groggily waking up, then rapidly snapping to her senses. He was right up to her and his blades were rapidly approaching her neck. Suddenly, as she opened her mouth, seemingly like a floodgate as wide as she possibly could, a screech of, "KAH!" came out which had a terrible nails-on-chalkboard echo behind it. Instantly, the boy found himself ripped from his determined charge by a violent invisible force. Hurtled through the air viciously, he ricocheted off the pad like a bullet and flew another seven feet to land on hard concrete face down. For six seconds, his body refused to move.

"UNCONSCIOUS!" shouted the official. "KOJI LUUDA IS THE WINNER!" The girl left the ring and went back to the waiting area, where she leaned against the wall, and fell asleep standing up. Sakura leaned in towards Ludo with a question in mind. She was impressed by the display of power in the form of sound field manipulation, even if the power displayed was her minimum.

"Ludo?" Sakura asked, quietly whispering so as not to awaken the girl who'd just fought. "What's with your sister's sleeping? How can she be so tired as to sleep standing up?"

The younger of the Koji clan addressed his fellow competitor. "The kekkei genkai of my bloodline is the ability to stay awake for three weeks straight followed by twenty-four hours of sleep," he explained. "I usually sleep every two or three days so as to keep my ability ready for a sudden mission, but not her. If she ain't eating or helping out with our parents, she's training. Sometimes she'll go into the field and train for days on end. I _still_ think it was poor planning on her part to have the day of the exam as her day of sleeping." Sakura looked over at the boy's sister; she certainly could sleep. A marble-sized bubble of snot expanded and contracted in conjunction with her breathing.

"That's...right..." Luuda said, blissfully in dreamland. "me...sleep...long...er..." The boy standing next to her began to twiddle his fingers a centimeter from her ear. Despite its being a sound far too quiet for most to hear, it became quite annoying her as she dozed. Almost involuntarily, her left fist lifted and viciously punched him in the face, sending him down on his butt. "I said let me _SLEEP!_" she cried, angrily glaring at him. Then, without a word, she closed her eyes, and with a nod, was back dreaming again.

The official approached the resting area again, and lifted his clipboard to his face. He took a quick glance at the names listed to spar against each other and cried, "KOJI LUDO AND KUNIDO IMAKE! YOU TWO ARE UP!" The younger brother of the Koji bloodline and the raven-haired boy next to Sakura stood up from where they were sitting and entered the fighting area. They each came up with their strategies as quickly as they could, and when the opening gong was rang, they rocketed towards each other with their maximum possible speed. They were just about a few centimeters from each other when Ludo disappeared in a puff of smoke. Looking around, Imake heard the footsteps of his opponent as he touched down and instantly leapt again, moving so quickly with his footwork that he could not be seen by the young genin. Sakura, at her current level of power, could barely keep up with the footwork the kid was doing, his opponent helplessly looking around himself for his foe to appear. What he wasn't expecting was for his opponent to materialize in front of him while he was looking the other way. The younger Koji, without speaking a word or hesitating an instant, plowed twelve hits into his enemy with such speed that it looked only like a single blow to most underclass ninja watching. With a grin of victory he returned to the resting area. Sakura couldn't help but be impressed. "KOJI LUDO IS THE WINNER BY KNOCKOUT!"

"FINAL BOUT OF THE OPENER! AFTER THIS, THE REMAINING THREE WILL FIGHT EACH OTHER ONE AT A TIME!" shouted the official. He read off the names in typical fashion. "UCHIHA TARIKA AND NAKO OGAWARA!" Sakura grinned to herself; this was her opportunity to put to the test her own abilities. She knew her opponent had within himself a considerable amount of power, but even so, it was no more than what she estimated Luuda's to be. Her opponent had a unique appearance, what with his mouth covered by a white covering, and long green hair that extended to about his rear end. He obviously had a few unique jutsus about himself, and could manipulate his own aura to suit his power. She had heard of members of the Nako bloodline having the capability to create impossible-to-break illusions, but with the appearance of being an Uchiha, Sakura predicted he'd be wise enough not to use them on her. The two of them stepped onto the fighting ring, and took up stance. Clenching her fists together, Sakura hastily charged up to twenty percent, her muscles expanding predictably. It took her opponent only mildly by surprise, so she estimated him to have unique fortifications against strong opponents.

The very moment the gong rang a poof of smoke indicated that he'd vanished from where he stood. Sakura barely had time to duck beneath a vicious swipe of his right fist, a kunai grasped tightly in it. He shot his leg out from his crouching position and nearly landed a blow to her abdomen, she just getting out of its way by the skin of her teeth. She went for a rising uppercut from her ducking position, but he tilted his upper torso back and avoided it, headbutting her on the return tilt. She bounced back a few feet, using the downward motion to propel herself into the air and over him, hoping to land successfully out of his way, but he moved quickly enough to catch her on the descent with a flying kick to the chest, hurtling her out of the ring onto hard concrete. "Get UP!" he shouted. "GIVE me a challenge!" She caught her breath quickly; this kid was a pest.

Upon leaping back into the ring, he formed four of his kunai into a windmill shape, and hurtled it at her with all his might. His entire strategy was for her to dodge the main one, but the one in its shadow to cut her in half. Instead of dodging it, she caught the two of them tightly in her grip. When he saw her catch his weapons, he began quickly making hand signs for his full power jutsu. She crushed his blades with her bare hands and charged up to twenty-five percent, launching herself towards him with unbelievable speed. Just as he was about to hit his full power, she aimed a punch at him, and landed it, easily impaling him through the chest. The official marked a circle with an x in it over Ogawara's name. "UCHIHA TARIKA WINS BY KILLING HER OPPONENT!" A squad of post-death officials came up and carried off the body of Nako Ogawara.

"Thank you," Luuda smiled, lifting her head. "Saved ME the trouble of shutting his dumb-ass up for good." Her brother turned to his sister.

"I thought you had to sleep, Luuda!" he noticed.

"Baka. The twenty-four hour period is up already. Why do you think I quit training early yesterday? So I'd only sleep through _PART_ of the chuunin exams."

On the other side of the continent, in the village of Konoha, a young jounin removed the towel that had been placed over the window to darken the room. It was not during the mid-afternoon that Hinata did anything other than train, but today was a unique day. Today, she'd finally been able to share the moment with someone. She had finally found the truth and figured out why she'd been so shy all of her teenage years. Brushing her hands through her hair, she looked out into the busy village and then back at the shinobi who was just waking up. She took a sip of Naruto's personal drink from his flask and sat down on the bed next to him.

"I have a question," Naruto groaned, the light from the room irritating his groggy eyes. "How do you women do it?"

Hinata lifted an eyebrow. "Do what?"

"Be so energetic after sex, I mean," he added. "You, you're dressed, you're bathed, you've already eaten..." he noticed all of the qualities that attracted him to her. He couldn't help but admire the way the sun shone in her hair. He couldn't help but admire the way she looked when she smiled. "...me, I'm gonna have to be _airlifted_ to a seated position." He ran his fingers through her hair as he begged his back muscles to push him upwards. Her quiet laugh in response to his joke echoed in his mind like a symphony conducted just by her, in the most acoustically perfect studio. She rubbed the back of his neck.

"I love you, Naruto."

"I love you too, _Uzumaki_ Hyuuga Hinata." He placed an extra emphasis on her new last name. They'd been married just a few months ago on his twenty-fourth birthday. Almost as an afterthought, she glanced at his clock.

"Oh _shit!_" she let out. "I'm gonna be late for my students' daily training session!" Naruto could only chuckle. "What's so funny?!" she demanded.

"I think I know now why Kakashi was chronically late." Her slight bit of peeve turned into playful laughter at the blonde jounin's amazing insightfulness.

* * *

I promised this chapter'd be a lot longer and it ended up being only a bit longer. Oh well, please keep reading. 


	4. CHAPTER THREE

Toguro Sakura

By Moonraker One

A/N: Kudos to the two thus far that advised me that Village Hidden in the Storm is Arashigakure no Sato. I will bestow you with godly powers in your next life.

CHAPTER THREE – Konoha's Own Chuunin Exam

A vast sea of genin, all chatting with one another, had the volume of a tornado and showed no signs of quieting down. That is, until a door swung open; it was then that they parted like the Red Sea and shut up, at the sight of the man standing before them. All the underclass ninja stood at attention and watched as the jounin who'd just walked in paced back and forth, trying to think of what to say. After about a whole minute of trying to plan his speech to give to them, he finally faced them directly.

"As you may know, I am Uzumaki Naruto, one of the higher-level jounin of Konoha," he began. "Some of you, by means of your parents, may also know that I my soul is merged with that of a Kyuubi. Most of you, at one point or another, have heard people saying that I am bad person, an insult to our fine shinobi village." If his tone was not somber, it became so at this point. "However, despite the inner desires of your friends and family, I am here to stay. In fact, I will be proctoring part of this year's chuunin examination." It was at those last two words to come out of his mouth that all the genin began chatting away again. He raised an arm in the air and they instantly became silenced again. "If you have been nominated by your team commander to take the exam, you will have the good fortune of doing a different exam than previous years had. For previous exams, we would hold a written aspect, then field work in the forest of death, followed finally by one-on-one sparring. It is by the wishes of Lady Hokage that we simply drop the written part, and hold one-on-one battles _INSIDE_ the forest of death." This brought on a collective groan from all the students present. "Oh, and one last parting piece of advice: try your hardest not to get put in the group proctored by fellow jounin Uchiha Sasuke. He hasn't taken a bath in three days and thus, he quite reeks of vinegar." A roaring storm of laughter followed from everyone present, even a few of the jounin.

"WHY'D YOU SAY THAT?!" Sasuke demanded. Naruto only smiled.

"Take a bath, and prove me wrong, _smell_-suke."

"You KNOW I haven't taken a bath because I just came back from a long mission!" Naruto did not turn around, instead, kept walking.

"Whatever, _smell_-suke."

As Naruto left the building in which the genin were called for their debriefing, he found himself approached by Maito Gai, one of the older jounin. Apparently, some important piece of news was written on a sheet of paper in the elder jounin's hand. "Uzumaki Naruto," Gai explained, "as a jounin, you are invited to partake in a special examination."

"I'm already a jounin, Gai, what exam would I want to take?" he wondered if his fellow upper level ninja had lost a screw somewhere.

"Lady Hokage is retiring after this year's chuunin exam, and has refused to choose a replacement," Naruto's eyes lit up after hearing those words come out of Gai's mouth. "A lot of the jounin will be applying." Naruto wanted to rip the paper out of Gai's hand and shout "yippee!" at the top of his lungs, but before he could, Gai followed up with, "I heard from Kakashi that your new wife, Hinata, is one of the applicants."

Naruto's eyebrows lowered. "Thank you, I'm finally getting my chance!" he shouted. On one hand, this was his dream. On the other hand, he didn't want to go head-to-head with his wife. However, weighing his alternatives took only a brief instant, for he chose to sign himself up. While thinking of Hinata, he looked over and felt a pair of hands tugging at his pants leg. A smile came to his face as he saw young Uchiha Nuuto. Gai walked away and left the sheet of paper in his fellow jounin's hand. He couldn't believe that Hokage had appointed Sasuke's child into Naruto's care. He figured one or both sides would hate it.

"Areyougoingtodolikeyousaidandtrainmetoday,Naruto-sama?" shot out of the child's mouth. He barely understood what the kid had said. As he picked Nuuto up above his head, he weaved the kid left and right in a figure eight pattern like he was an airplane, then set him down.

"Yes I am," he replied, "and I'm gonna teach you a brand new technique!"

"YayIlovenewtechniques!" the child chirped. The kid's rapid-fire speech seemed to fit his enthusiasm. What Naruto simply was amazed by was the fact that the kid was no older than seven and already he was taking on techniques not touched by genin almost twice his age and mastering them effectively. He wondered how the kid could still be like a child, what with the pace at which he seemed to be growing up. It took Naruto almost until he was about fifteen to grow up completely into a mature person.

"If we just go back to the place with the other members of our cell, I'm gonna show you how to do it!" he tried to show as much enthusiasm as the kid had, although that degree of it was hard to display. "One new technique, six new ways of spying on your enemies, and if you're REALLY good, I'll show you a technique called the 'Sexy no Jutsu!'"

"Oooh! Thatsoundscool,Naruto-sensei!"

"You just can't tell your dad I'm teaching it to you."

"You'rewaycool,sensei!"

"Yeah, it's just that a few people don't think so. But you're right, I'm really great." He looked at the kid, and he could see that behind the smile was a serious question waiting to be asked.

"Sensei, do you hate my father?" Naruto looked down in surprise, if merely for the reason that the kid spoke at a normal rate of speed. Other than that, he didn't know how to adequately respond to a bombshell of a question like the one he'd been asked. He often wondered about that himself; DID he really hate Sasuke? Or, like he'd been hoping, was there some way of salvaging the fact that they used to be friends.

"Of course not!" Naruto argued. "I just get peeved with him on occasion."

At the village of Arashigakure, as the chuunin examinations were partially underway, a small waiting area at the base of a small stairs leading up to a fighting ring had previously held six, but that number had whittled away to three. Of Sakura, Koji Luuda, and Koji Ludo, only one could walk away with the top spot, and a chance to fight a jounin. If Sakura managed to get that far as to beat the jounin, certainly she'd be face to face with the kage of the Village of the Storm, where she'd enact the final phase of her plan. She'd kill him and command one, if not the, most militarily powerful shinobi village. From there she'd finally get a chance to overwhelm Konoha, and kill all the freaks that banished her.

A clipboard got raised into the air, and a voice shouted, "KOJI LUDO AND KOJI LUUDA, YOU'RE UP!" It had come down to the semi-finals of this group; brother versus sister, only one would win. Unbeknownst to Luuda, her brother had been training personally under the kage for quite a bit, and had a bit of advantage in terms of skill. Power, they both knew, was anybody's guess, for they each had uniquely powerful jutsus. They readied themselves, and the moment between the dropping of the signal ball, and the gong ring that followed, seemed to last a lifetime.

Not one nanosecond after the gong rang did the two siblings vanish in a poof of smoke, both at the exact same time. Sakura had to increase her power to four percent in order to properly see them swinging at each other, and even then, they were going dreadfully fast. The brother had several techniques that were purely physical that he was using to throw off his sister's guard. He hurled a fist at her face, which she barely had time to dodge by putting up her left forearm in its path, using the force of it to counter and kick him in the chest. He fell backwards onto his rear, but shot back up to a standing position and rocketed towards her with feet swinging as fast as he could hurtle kicks at her. She did quite a good job of dodging them and ultimately reversing one of them into a sweep that he leapt over. As he fired off more kicks to distract her, he formed signs with both hands. Once he finished, she took a kick to her chin in order to be able to bend over backwards as far as her flexibility would allow.

"FIRE STORM NO JUTSU!" A swirling stream of blazing inferno streaked over her, burning off a small section of her shirt and slightly singing her stomach. When she came up, he blasted her six feet out of the ring with a jab to her gut, immediately succeeded by a straight blow to the face. She landed on her hands and knees, pushing herself into the air just a slight bit over and behind him. She delivered a raising knee into his back, thrusting him to the floor face down. He rolled over to avoid her stomp, and leapt to his feet. "C'MON, Luuda!" he egged. "You got some fancy technique! Use it!"

_Not yet,_ she thought. _Just give me some time, though, and you're as good as down._ She predicted that her brother's next attack would be a forward strike to the abdomen, which had already been slightly singed, which he did but did only as a distraction while he vanished in a puff of smoke and rematerialized behind her, throwing a left hook at the back of her head. With speed unheard of, she bent backwards to dodge it, putting her in prime position to punch straight upwards at his head. He bent his neck back and avoided the potential strike—which probably would have been a tide turner—but was unprepared for her to flip over onto her hands and strike him directly in the chest with both feet simultaneously. Utilizing her arm strength (due to her training she had impressive upper body strength for a scrawny looking girl), she thrust herself back to an upright position, rapidly turning around to slam a series of standing side kicks into his face, chest and gut, all in the time before her previous double-footed strike removed him from his standing position. When her thousandth-of-a-second long flurry of kicks ended, he got uprooted like an olive tree in a force five hurricane. Flying almost seventeen feet across the room, he met the far back wall rather brutally, and fell to his hands and knees. _NOW it's time,_ Luuda thought.

"How the hell did you get so stro…" he yelled as he pushed himself towards a standing position. Before he could finish his sentence (or get to his feet, for that matter) she put her middle finger and thumb together, and made a flicking motion as if to strike a fly in midair. By itself it would have been drowned out by the sounds in the room, but Luuda was well-known for having one technique that had been banned. Her flicking sound was magnified to have the vibration pattern of a lightning strike at zero range, the sound intensity of a bomb explosion, and a range narrow enough to nail her brother directly in the chest. He got hit by the sound waves as though they were a fifteen pound steel cannon ball, which threw him backwards, causing him to meet the wall face first and upside-down. Almost everyone felt the building rattle when he hit the wall at the speed of a fastball pitch. After that, he landed on his back, twitched a bit, then fell unconscious.

"THAT'S the Fatal Sound Aura technique," she whispered. Sakura, from the sidelines, was quite impressed; a mere flick of the finger had been magnified almost fifteen hundred times, and concentrated in a circular area on her brother's chest, the better part of seventeen feet away. It was only when the official went to confirm the winner that he realized that everyone who wasn't fighting was holding their breath. When he went to check Ludo's neck for a pulse, he was amazed that the boy hadn't been either killed or put into a permanent coma.

"KOJI LUUDA IS THE WINNER BY KNOCKOUT!" shouted the official. "AFTER A FIVE MINUTE BREAK, THE FINAL MATCH OF THIS CELL WILL COMMENCE!"

Sakura gave an approving look to Luuda. "You were a bit rough on your brother," she told the girl. Luuda rolled her eyes, and gave a playful grin.

"The boy needed his sorry ass kicked," she replied, "and I was just itching to use my technique." Sakura lifted her eyes momentarily, as though to stress an important message.

"Against _ME_," she offered, "you'll get to use it to its utmost potential!"

"Wouldn't have it any other way."

A rapid surge of power shot past Naruto's head as he stood opposite his three-man team. He'd been placed in charge of training a team of underclassmen—like any jounin was expected to do—but he never expected the members of his trio to be so different from each other. The primary member was a girl by the name of Iyuko, whose primary skill was her jutsu which allowed control over water vapor. She'd been excelling in nearly every form of taijutsu, although her illusions left a lot to be desired. Next in stature to her was Nuuto, the only son (so far) of Sasuke, who at the age of six already possessed more skill than Naruto himself had at twice the boy's age. The kid's development had been nothing short of mind-boggling; already the kid could turn on and off his sharingan, he could use almost all of his father's fire jutsus, and had taijutsu skills that rivaled shinobi much older than himself. Naruto estimated him to be the second strongest of the trio, just above the final member, a boy who could make illusions better than anything ever seen, and had the ninjutsu techniques of a chuunin, but couldn't fight purely physically if his life depended on it. Not that he couldn't throw his share of punches and kicks, or parry his oppoent's strikes, he didn't have the physical techniques that other ninja his age had. It was a fault that had to be worked on if he ever was to go on a b-rank mission or the sort. His name was Kudano.

"Nice," Naruto complimented, dodging bolts of lightning fired from his trio. "Keep it up! Pretty soon you'll be able to move onto more powerful lightning jutsus. Right now, this is the basic stuff you have to master." The bolts from the two older members of the group were pretty good considering it was the first time they were using them, but after only two tries the short son of Uchiha Sasuke had mastered the basic Lightning no Jutsu expertly. "Nuuto, could you please step to the side so I can talk to you privately?"

"Sure,Naruto-sensei! Isthereaproblem?" Naruto couldn't help but smile; the kid reverted to his thousand-mile-an-hour rate of talking. Pulling him far enough away from the other two so that they couldn't easily hear what he was saying, he carefully planned out his words.

"Nuuto," he began, "you said your dad wasn't training you. Is that true?"

"No,hewon'ttrainme. Hesayshistypeoftrainingistooadvancedforme." Naruto shook his head; he'd predicted this. Even though Sasuke himself had been a master shinobi at a young age, he didn't want his son to have the same responsibilities that he had. He really couldn't understand why Sasuke couldn't see that regardless of what he did, his son would inevitably inherit the same kekkei genkai that every Uchiha had. He'd made a decision; even if the Uchiha wouldn't train his own son, Nuuto would get plenty of training from Naruto whenever he had the chance.

"You're six years old, and already you're better than I was at twice your age! Did you know that?"

The kid bowed his head with a smile, and then dashed off to rejoin the other two to continue their training. Naruto looked to his team, but before he could rejoin them, a knocking was heard at the door to his dwelling. When he opened it, at the door was Kakashi.

"Kakashi-sensei, what're you doing here?"

The copy nin had in his hand a clipboard. "The chuunin exam's been pushed up; it starts in two days," he explained. Naruto's eyes shot open.

"_TWO_ DAYS?" he cried. He couldn't possibly have predicted that Hokage would move the exam _up._ If it had been moved back, it would have made sense. Why it would be conducted _sooner_ was beyond his reasoning. "Well, what is it?"

"Do you have any shinobi that you'd like to recommend for this year's exam?" Naruto carefully thought up an answer to Kakashi's question. After a whole minute of deliberation, he looked to his team then at Kakashi.

"Iyoka and Nuuto are more than ready," he explained, "but Kudano doesn't have taijutsu skills mastered enough to be much of an opponent. I mean, his genjutsus and ninjutsus are absolutely wonderful, but…"

"Yeah," Kakashi finished, "if you can't precisely predict your opponent's type of taijutsu and counter it exactly, you'll be doomed to lose every time. So, Kizana Iyoka and Uchiha Nuuto, then?" A nod solidified Naruto's answer, and Kakashi wrote down the names of the shinobi to compete. Unlike previous years, teams weren't required to take part, so the two members of his team could actually participate separately.

"Okay, guys," Naruto told his students. "You should go home now; it's been about as long as it should be." Each of the three members of his team gathered their stuff and left, all with a certain degree of wonder. Nuuto wondered what the chuunin exam really was, Iyoka wondered how she'd stack up against some of the more powerful genin she'd have to fight, and Kudano wondered what parts of his skill were lacking that warranted his team leader not to nominate him for the exam. He decided to ask Naruto himself what the deal was. Naruto, naturally seeing his third student upset, he looked down and asked, "What's wrong, Kudano?"

Kudano couldn't help but look confused at his instructor. "Naruto-sensei," he said in a disappointed tone, "why didn't you choose me?" Naruto bowed his head; he'd seen this question coming a mile away. He put a reassuring hand on the genin's shoulder.

"Kudano," he explained, in as nice a tone as possible, "you can do genjutsu and ninjutsu better than about any shinobi your age that I'd seen. It's the simple fact that your taijutsu needs to improve. You don't understand the sheer importance of being able to predict your opponent's pattern and counter; sometimes it could mean the difference between living and dying." His explanation seemed to answer the young ninja's question, but a deeper thought weighed on his mind. Naruto used his Kyuubi power of mind-reading, and saw the answer. The reason the kid was so worried about it, was a reason that made Naruto's blood turn cold.

The kid had an abusive father. To Naruto, such a thing was worse than having none at all. He figured, though, that it would be safer not to tell the kid that he knew the real reason. He'd confront Kudano's father on his own—without the knowledge of the dad's son—and get him to change his tune so that he could lead the young shinobi to think that his dad had changed on his own.

The last minute of the five minute break that took place before Sakura and Luuda were scheduled to go head to head seemed to last forever. Sakura knew that even though the girl's power came nowhere near her own, she couldn't let up for a second or she'd be quick-fried by the Fatal Sound Aura. She estimated the girl's power to be enough to kill Orochimaru's giant snake, so in order to be safe, thirty percent seemed adequate. After all, she didn't want to use TOO much power, lest she attract unwanted attention. Luuda couldn't imagine the depths of power that her opponent had. She'd seen the skinny girl fight only once, and even then, the power displayed was minimal compared to the stores hidden within. She had no idea, of course, of the fact that Sakura was capable of leveling a high-rise building at only half of her true power. The official stood up from his seat and marked down the last fight between the two remaining members of that particular cell.

"UCHIHA TARIKA VERSUS KOJI LUUDA!" he shouted, raising his clipboard high above his head. "FINAL MATCH OF CELL THIRTY! WINNER OF THIS CELL WILL GO ON NOT TO FACE A JOUNIN, BUT LORD KAGE HIMSELF!" Luck smiled upon her; already phase two of her plan was to go underway.

From the complete other side of the huge gymnasium, Orochimaru had already won his cell, and defeated the jounin he had been set to face, so he sat down and watched his protégé as a fellow member of his cell sat down. "One hell of a shinobi, you are," he complimented.

"Well," Orochimaru egged in his stolen voice, "I've been training my entire life."

"I'd bet you'd like to fight our Kage, like she's going to fight," added the cell member. "After all, we've never been challenged under mighty Lord Uchiha." Orochimaru's blood ran cold at the last sound. Ever so slowly, he turned his head to face his cell member.

"Did…did you just say 'Lord Uchiha?' as in…Uchiha _Itachi_!?"

"Yeah. For siblings to fight, this'll be just amazing!"

_Oh fuck!_ Orochimaru screamed inside his head. _At her strongest, I've seen her no more powerful than myself! She'll be maimed in seconds against Itachi!_ Instinctively, he leaped over the couch he was sitting on and dashed towards his student. She simply had to be warned before she went and got herself killed. "Where're you go…" his cell member tried to protest but couldn't, for the giant snake ninja already was halfway across the huge gymnasium by the time the third word came out. He arrived at the fighting ring Sakura was in just in a few moments before the fight was to begin. Pushing the jounin refereeing the match aside, he leaped into the ring.

"Tarika!" he shouted in a whisper, referring to her by the stolen name to preserve identity. "The kage of this village is a shinobi by the name of Uchiha Itachi!" She rolled her eyeballs left and right.

"And…your point is?" she inquired.

"IDIOT!" he yelled, hastily lowering his tone. "If I'm nowhere near strong enough to fight him, how do _YOU_ expect to be able to?!"

She wanted, at this point, to dispel his doubt by telling him her secret that she possessed strength vastly in excess of his own, but maintained a fear that he'd abandon her just as her home village had a decade prior. For the one of the only people that had ever cared to simply disown her because of superior ability would be a degree of loneliness that simply was too great. So she merely replied, "I haven't seen his fighting techniques yet, and after all," she leaned in to delicately whisper, "I am a demon's child."

"IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE!" he screamed in a whisper. "You'll die, and my dreams as well as yours will die also!" She couldn't believe it; he'd actually come close to saying he needed her.

"Kinuro," she answered in simple terms, "have I ever let you down? Whenever I said I'd kill someone, I've killed them. Nothing has stopped me from killing whomever opposes me."

"ITACHI IS FAR SUPERIOR TO _ANYTHING_ I'VE EVER THROWN AT YOU!" he stated in his sharp whispering tone. "but if you insist on fighting him, I'll have to bail you out at the end."

"CAN WE GET THIS MATCH UNDERWAY?!" the referee rasped loudly. Orochimaru grudgingly left the ring as the two opponents vanished in a poof of smoke. Sakura barely managed to dodge a powerful swing by her opponent by ducking beneath it; Luuda, however, had predicted that her pre-emptive strike would be avoided, so she turned it at the last minute into a violent rising knee that caught the pink-haired demon directly in the chest. A powerful strike from her landed right on Sakura's forehead, throwing her to the ground a few feet away from where she'd previously been standing. Sakura's eyes widened a moment before she flipped herself onto her hands to avoid being stomped on, then pushed herself back onto her feet. Her opponent off guard, she whirled around and smashed a roundhouse kick into her foe's left cheek, spinning Luuda around to land on her face. The older Koji sibling flipped into the air almost catching Sakura on the chin before landing on her feet, thrusting her elbow backwards upon making herself upright, just a inch short of nailing her opponent again. She turned around and leapt backwards; the two shinobi stood opposite each other.

Taking up stance, Luuda grinned and said, "That should do for a warm-up. NOW you'll see the true destructive power of the Fatal Sound Aura!"

_This opponent is inhumanly strong for her age,_ Sakura thought. _She's probably about sixteen and she's already mastered a technique so powerful it's been banned in many villages. Twenty-six percent should be about right._ Sakura said nothing in response to her adversary's compliment, simply gritting her teeth and letting her chi surge to the surface. Reaching a level of strength her body hadn't used in quite a while, her shorts had horribly torn, just barely managing to hold on by the waist band at the top of them. Her shirt fared just as bad, with the increase in muscle size ripping a split in both sides clean up to her underarms, and tearing off both sleeves. Her shoes had somehow managed to stay intact despite the fact that her feet had increased in size by a full shoe size and a half, but all of these problems were acceptable considering that her power had increased about fifty times. Luuda could barely believe the chakra emissions she sensed off of her foe; not only did she have a tremendous amount more chakra than before, the fact that her muscles were quite a bit larger allowed for a tremendous amount more chakra to be stored in them, allowing for the immense surge of energy. Luuda knew she could not last very long against such a difference in power abilities. She stomped her foot and prepared to modify the sound.

She let the sound pattern from stomping her foot be magnified about eight million times—effectively burning up almost all of her chakra for such a drastic increase in volume—and concentrated it into a cylindrical area two feet in circumference. Then she hurtled it at Sakura with all the speed of a bullet, striking her on the stomach, sending her violently across the room to blast a seven foot wide hole in the wall as she went through nineteen inches of solid concrete of the gymnasium wall. It had been Luuda's most powerful strike possible with the Fatal Sound Aura technique; if this final attack was a failure, she'd have no chance of winning. But after two minutes of nothing, she began to smile.

"ERRRAAAGGGHHHH!" A loud screech was heard from outside as a fist dealt a powerful strike to the wall, widening the seven foot wide hole to twelve feet. Sakura's mammoth frame leapt through the gap in the wall, landing with a heavy thud on the concrete floor, leaving visible cracks upon landing. Luuda could barely breathe as the woman approached her. With one hand, the pink-haired demon raised her opponent four feet off the ground, her grip tight as a vice.

"Please…spare…me…" Luuda rasped. "I'll…do…anything…" The plea for life intrigued Sakura; perhaps she'd have some use for this girl after all. As she put down the girl, the female Koji passed out from lack of chakra and also from sheer exhaustion.

"UCHIHA TARIKA WINS BY KNOCKOUT!" She looked to her left and saw the kage himself appear in a puff of smoke; indeed, Orochimaru's advice was not wrong as she felt a huge amount of chakra buried within Itachi.

"Very good…_Sakura_," announced Itachi. Sakura gasped; how did he know her name? "You are indeed a powerful warrior…after all, _your brother_ thought so." With his right arm, that had been partially shielded from sight by being held three-fourths of the way behind the rear door to the gymnasium, he pulled into sight Toguro Tabuna, her brother, whom he held above his head with one arm. Not a single bit of effort was required by Itachi in order to hurl him fifteen feet to land in front of Sakura. With his life blood draining from him quickly, from a large group of puncture wounds on his chest, the demon looked up to his sister.

"Sa…ku…ra…" he managed to utter, blood coming from his mouth with every syllable spoken. "I'm…a goner…but I'm…certain you…can kill him…you're…stronger…than…me…" Before he could finish his sentence, a kunai sailed across the room and entered his neck, hastening his death.

"Let's see your true demonic powers; after all, you are younger Toguro's daughter, aren't you?" He looked behind her and saw her sensei standing with a horrified look on his face. "Your teacher doesn't realize your secret, does he Sakura?" Orochimaru looked with a questioning look at his protégé; what secret would she possibly hide from _him_?!

"So you know I'm far superior to him, Uchiha Itachi?" she egged, letting her disguise drop. The great snake shinobi almost leapt back in shock; he couldn't understand why she'd hide her true power from him.

"_SAKURA!_" he shouted. "_HOW_ could you hide such a vital piece of information from me, your master!" She gritted her teeth; it was not his sharp tone that struck her like a knife, it was his use of the word "master." She considered herself a servant to no one, much less an inferior being in terms of power.

"You are not a master to me! I am NO ONE'S servant! I'll kill him and then _YOU_ are going to do what _I_ say!"

Itachi raised his eyebrows, surprised and pleased. "Ah! But first you must be able to attack me on equal terms! Let me see one hundred percent!"

Sakura almost laughed; this shinobi could not possibly be such a fool. "I'll take myself to sixty-five percent and no higher! Why should I waste my full power on a useless fool such as you?!"

"You're still a child," he whispered, moving the better part of twenty feet in an instant, slamming a jab into her gut. She spit up a small pulse of blood onto his shirt out of surprise; she was not expecting _that_ degree of opening power. A kick to her face sent her slamming into a small flight of stairs next to Orochimaru. He held her, horrified.

"You should give up this useless effort!" She would not listen to her master's words. Pulling herself up, she caused the entire structure to rattle from the sheer level of energy coursing through her body as her shirt tore off almost completely, leaving behind only enough fabric to cover half of her chest, the other half exposing her bra which had been taxed far beyond the limits of its elasticity but somehow held on.

"Oh, he's _SO_ asking for seventy percent," she joked.


	5. CHAPTER FOUR

Toguro Sakura

By Moonraker One

A/N: For your information, Genkai is NOT Sakura's mother. Think about it: Sakura was close to fourteen when she was banished, making her twenty-five by this point. Genkai had to be at least in her _sixties_ when Sakura was born; women lose their fertility about age thirty-five to forty. I haven't thought of who Sakura's mother really is, and it doesn't genuinely matter to this story, since her power comes from her dad's side.

CHAPTER FOUR - Uchiha Itachi, Kage of Arashi

As Sakura lifted herself to her feet, she clenched her fists at her side. Letting her power surge from twenty-six as it previously had been to sixty-eight percent of her total power, more of her demon form began to show through her human outer image. Her shirt and bra finally could take no further stress and ripped irreversibly, falling off as her form altered itself. The muscles in her currently massive arms shrunk only the tiniest of degrees, while her shoulders' bone structures reformed into large plates covered by her muscles. She looked as though she were wearing shoulder pads beneath her skin, as they increased her shoulders in length by a half a foot. Her hair changed to halfway between its usual pink and blood red. Her usually normal toned skin became slightly grayer, reminiscent of stone. Her neck thickened a bit, while her facial features remained mostly the same. This horrifying display of physical change was subordinate, though, compared to how terribly powerful she seemed to become; she had to be at least a hundred measure stronger than she'd previously been based on muscle size, to say nothing of her chakra emissions. Everyone in the room had been trembling—no more so than Orochimaru himself—but Itachi, of all people, displayed no fear. If anything, he seemed _more_ pleased now than ever.

"Ha," he exclaimed, smug as ever. "_THIS_ is the power your brother lacked, Toguro Sakura. You are truly your father's daughter."

Before a single word was spoken by Sakura, she moved from where she'd stood to slam her elbow into his gut, then moved back to where she was before he left the position he was in. The moment after she'd struck him, he violently got hurtled backwards, through the wall of the gymnasium. Grinning, she waited for him to climb back through the self-made wall in the gym. He instantly formulated his strategy for winning before he activated his sharingan. Grasping a kunai in each hand, he leapt towards her without care for his own safety, reassuring himself of his inevitable victory.

At the very least, you could give Itachi credit, for never before had he fought an opponent that so equally kept up with his movements. She saw that he was preparing to leap behind her once he was within a few inches, and leave a trail of smoke behind as a distraction. Knowing his plan a few half-seconds before he enacted his strategy, she was able to bend forward beneath an angry swipe of his two kunai, which flew in opposing directions with intent to remove her head. From her forward bent position, she threw her right leg backwards in attempt to catch him off-guard, but he tilted to his left quick enough to avoid her strike. Swiftly, he tilted the opposing direction to dodge a similar kick from her other leg. He hit the ground almost a microsecond too late, just barely missing a clothesline strike she tried as she swung her entire body around with right arm outstretched. While she stopped herself, he drove his right elbow backwards into her back, throwing her forward a few feet and also throwing off her timing. Not an instant after he nailed her in her back did he violently spin around and slam an extended right leg into her gut, immediately halting her forward movement. His kick bent her slightly in the shape of a C, allowing for him to drive an uppercut into her chin and blast her onto her back, but before she could land flat, he slammed a backhand into her face, sailing her quite a distance backwards. During her flight across the room, he took a moment to gather leg strength, and propelled himself towards her, like a rocket crashing a flying kick into her chest that sped her even faster through the far back wall.

With the already-large hole (roughly twelve feet in diameter), the wall wasn't faring so good with the violent slams rattling the room every time one occurred. She climbed through the opening and landed about ten feet apart from Itachi. Wiping a smidgen of purple blood from her face, she smiled and spat on the concrete floor. He had just shown her his zenith of power, while she had a significant ways to go, even without increasing her muscle mass. She'd held back and wanted him to open with a ferocious attack, so that she could see some of his best moves. He clenched the blades in his hands tightly; he hadn't used them to slice her yet, but soon he'd get his chance. That is, if she'd allow such a thing. A playful smile developed on her face. "You know, I've fought none as strong as you," she complimented, "even among the ranks of demons I've taken down. Consider this your lucky day; you get to tell your dead relatives you lasted longer than a second against a member of the Toguro bloodline!" Everyone still in the room could not believe what they were witnessing; their mighty ruler had met…his combat equal?! Orochimaru, caught up in a torment of confusion, did not know what to think. Even he, the Great Snake, would last but a brief moment against such power as either of these two had displayed in the short ten or so seconds they'd just fought. He let up his disguise as she let go on hers, allowing several students in the room to at once recognize who they really were. On the other side of the room, Koji Ludo and his more powerful sister leaned against the wall, catching their breath from their fast-paced fights.

"Sis," Ludo asked, "am I going crazy, or is that the daughter of the younger of the two Toguro brothers?"

"Ludo, you've always been crazy," Luuda replied, "but yes, she is."

"THAT'S why she kicked your ass."

She slapped her brother. "Watch it, Ludo."

Sakura took a direct blow to the stomach from a powerful kick; just a few more moves from her foe and she'd have seen all his techniques and would then begin systematically ripping his chances of winning apart. She needed no sharingan; she was a demon—it was that that allowed her to memorize her opponent's technique. Thus, from what she'd seen of her foe's earlier exchange of blows that he'd attempt a headbutt followed by a straight punch to the face, and she was correct on both assumptions. Yet, even with the powerful force behind his blows, any damage she took instantly healed before the next strike could land, with no disregard to the fact that each punch or kick would come an instant after the previous one. She waited for the perfect opportunity to begin her physical assault on Itachi; it took about seven minutes of getting pummeled (or at least giving the illusion that she was getting pummeled), before she saw a clear opening in his strategy. Then, as he prepared to finish her off with a tremendously powerful jutsu, she threw off his hand-sign forming with a vicious kick to the right side of his head, blasting him head first towards the right wall, implanting him halfway through face first. As he struggled to free himself, she grabbed his feet and ripped him from the wall as though he were a stubborn tooth, lifting him high and hurtling him across the room. A flying kick then connected on his chest, with him just barely avoiding getting crushed against the opposing wall.

He shook his head; there was no way she could be this powerful…could she? He found himself wondering what kind of demon she really was, before she charged his way and swung at him. He utilized every bit of his speed and leapt behind her, attempting a sweep kick that she bounded over, coming down in front of him to take eight punches in furious succession to her abdomen, all of which did nothing. She drove her fist deep into his gut, bending him forward so quickly he heard at least one vertebrae in his spine creek and then crackle. She drew herself backwards a bit and drove her foot directly into his face, violently jerking him backward to slam into the base of a stairway leading a short ways up into a fighting ring. He saw partially red thanks to blood from his forehead running past his eyes, his nose was broken, and his spine seemed injured. It took all his might just to stand up, and he barely made it upright before she materialized in a poof of smoke to uppercut him directly beneath his chin, and kick him upwards to land on his back in the ring above the floor. As the room dimmed and brightened, almost fast enough to create a strobe effect, he felt his hands weigh as much as anchors as he made signs with each hand; if this failed, he was dead for sure.

"You ready to surrender?" she asked him. His spine and limbs argued intensely as he forced himself standing. He made the fastest hand signs ever, catching her just before she was in front of him.

"UCHIHA SECRET!" he shouted, bringing his hands out towards her. "FIRESTORM FURY NO JUTSU!" A sphere of flame the size of a beach ball engulfed her, with electric bolts shooting off the walls striking every inch of her frame as she screeched in agony. Orochimaru could not believe what he was witnessing; this was the awful, ultimate jutsu of the Uchiha bloodline, and none other than Itachi himself had mastered it. The snake shinobi bounded from his spot, selflessly trying to come to her aid. He cared for no one—much less some demon girl he intended merely to use to his advantage—but if she died, his only chance for supreme revenge died as well. "SPLIT AND EXPLODE!" With those words, the ball of flame lit up the room as everyone covered their eyes; the entire frame of the gymnasium rattled a moment before most of the roof was blown to smithereens. Many shinobi were thrown in every direction.

"SAKURA!" Orochimaru shouted, approaching Itachi's position. The Uchiha member sneered as he prepared to assault his newest challenger. He knew even in his weakened and damaged state, he'd be too much for even the snake shinobi to handle. But Orochimaru did not care; he refused to surrender as he drew his kunai and took a swipe at the one who'd taken out his protégé.

"YOU'RE GOING TO DI…" Before his sentence was complete, and before he could attack Itachi, a hand reached out and grabbed him by the back of his shirt, proceeding to throw him backwards. Of all the things he'd seen, the Kage of Arashigakure had never seen a foe stand up to the Firestorm Fury no Jutsu and live, much less have taken no damage other than useless superficial burns that would heal momentarily.

"MY kill!" she warned her sensei.

"Sa…Sakura! You're alive!"

Without responding, she ripped off Itachi's head with one clean kick. She fell to her knees after landing the decisive blow to her opponent, and smiled as she pushed her power back down to its usual three percent. Transforming pure ki into matter, she summoned a fresh set of clothes identical to the ones she had earlier. Her sensei had a mixture of emotions that he experienced all at once: anger at her for disguising her true power from him to let him think he was superior, something close to happiness at her safety, and distrust at any other potential secrets she'd been hiding. Ultimately, he knew the best thing to do would be to keep up his cold attitude, and that's exactly what he did. Approaching her with a straight face after a combat went through several turns inevitably to land in her favor, he helped her to his feet as they walked towards the exit to the mostly-ruined building. They were met with a gathering of about seven shinobi, all upper class jounin—elite of the highest possible order. Sakura didn't care who they were—they weren't as powerful as their former master—and she still had plenty of fight left over for each of them to die several times over.

The eldest, most powerful of the group knelt before the woman whom had been responsible minutes earlier for the death of his Kage. "Lady Toguro," he offered, "I offer you my servitude as general of the army of Arashigakure. I predicted, upon Lord Uchiha's mention of the arrival of two strangers, that you'd be after the position of kage. Which of you will be in the primary position of leader?" In response, Sakura clamped her hand on her sensei's shoulder, tightly enforcing her will.

"I will," she said to the shinobi, not taking her eyes off her sensei. "That won't be a problem," she tightened her grip on Orochimaru's shoulder, "will it, Orochimaru?"

"Ow! No, no problem at…ow!…all." She let him loose after hearing his words.

"Okay then, how's the status of the military?"

A shinobi behind her approached with a smile on his face. "Lord Uchiha kept us up and training daily! Seven thousand fighting chuunin, eight hundred jounin which consists of four hundred new jounin, and four hundred veterans, that's the size of our experienced military. If we bring in the most experienced of genin, with the honorable ten-years-old minimum enlistment age, we're potentially talking a whole three thousand additional."

The ninja standing next to the leader of the group shook his head. "Yeah, but Konoha has, even in times of peace, a standing army of fifty thousand, ten thousand of which are immediately deployable, and if allowed even a single week to prepare, they'll expand their numbers by two hundred thousand easily."

"Sitokara," the leader said to his subordinate jounin, "you are such a pessimist. It is not only about size; Konoha shinobi don't have the same skills we have. Why, I command nine hundred fighting men and each of them can blow away a thousand shinobi from a hundred yards' distance thanks to techniques forbidden in most other villages!"

"Uh, guys?" Sakura inquired. "Shouldn't we take this inside and talk instead of standing out here?"

"Forgive us, Lady Kage, we merely like to have our plans as carefully laid as possible."

The door to the Kage's office, which now belonged to Sakura and Orochimaru, flung open. Once they saw the two standing in the doorway, the mood in the air thickened. Koji's Ludo and Luuda did not know what these two especially powerful shinobi would need their presences for, but predicted that it involved a mission of some type. Her brother had doubts of his own. As Sakura looked up from her three-page strategy that she'd been formulating, she knew the two junior shinobi—whom were junior only in rank, for they outmatched numerous chuunin in skill—were just another aspect of her plan. "Don't just stand there, come on in," she offered them.

"Um…you needed us, Lady Kage?" Luuda inquired. She was nervous; she'd been easily defeated by this woman who was only using a fraction of her power.

"You should be honored to consider yourself part of my plan," she explained. "You are to go to Konoha village, and enter into their chuunin examination. While competing for the rank of chuunin, you will gather as much information as possible on the size of their military. This is absolutely crucial: you must maintain your image of inconspicuousness. " Luuda and her brother both stood nervous at attention. The female of the Koji clan cleared her throat.

"Lady Kage, are you planning an invasion?"

"That is not your place to know. Your goal is to gather information." She turned to Orochimaru, who was standing beside her. "And you, Orochimaru, will go for the purpose of aiding them."

He almost recoiled in shock; _she_ was giving _him_ orders?! "Me?! But, I…I mean, I'm the general of this army! I need to stay here!" She glared at him, and instantly the thought of her inhuman power standing opposite him frightened him out of his wits. Immediately he surrendered his position and bowed. "As you wish, Sakura." While he and the other two walked out the door, he turned to his former student. "WATCH it," he whispered, then left. Sakura grinned to herself; she desperately wanted to see the look on Sasuke's face when her forces breeched the main gate to Konoha.

On the outside of Arashigakure, the team leader Orochimaru stopped the two underclass ninja before they got out of the giant forest surrounding the storm village. "Now," he briefed them, "we are going to be competing with shinobi of high skill and ability. Do NOT use flashy moves, simply use what you have and finish the fights quickly. Understood?" they both nodded. "Good; now, I'm certain that a particular jounin named Uzumaki Naruto will be able to see through any disguise I use, thus, I will have to move to a different body. I will find a way of letting you know it's me."

* * *

At a ramen restaurant in the middle of Konoha, Naruto gulped down the last of his fifth bowl, and took a long, refreshing drink from his liquor flask. He turned to his right to face Kakashi, who was engrossed in the latest issue of Icha Icha Paradise. "You know," he told his former sensei, "one day you're gonna find that you've wasted your life reading those books. By the way, aren't you going to visit your daughter today? I heard she was taking the jounin exam."

"Yeah, she is," he told Naruto. He took Naruto's liquor flask and drank from it. "At age ten too; even I'm impressed." Naruto took his flask back from Kakashi, used his demon power to ensure that he didn't pick up any germs from his former master, and put it in his pocket. He put down some money for his master's ramen, then left the restaurant.

"Gotta go; there's a hyperactive, young son of an Uchiha that I have to give a personal training lesson to."

"Maybe you should teach that kid to slow down when he talks."

Naruto chuckled a bit. "Yeah, maybe I should."


	6. CHAPTER FIVE

Toguro Sakura

By Moonraker One

Author's note: Enjoy my first (and only) chapter without Sakura in it.

CHAPTER FIVE – The Naruto Diet

No sooner did Naruto exit the restaurant than did a kunai sail seemingly out of nowhere and land just a few inches short of one of his feet. His demonic senses allowed him to see the presence that had thrown the knife, even though the figure believed he could not be seen. No time did he waste turning his body ninety degrees left and delivering a sharp standing side kick to the assailant behind him, blasting the man through the window of the restaurant and almost through the counter in the far back. He approached the figure, pushing broken glass and the damaged window frame aside as he reentered through the newly-formed restaurant opening, and removed the mask from his attacker. He felt only mild surprise at the face he saw.

"Why, if it isn't Hyuga Neji," he uttered, lifting the slightly-injured Neji to his feet. He slammed a hard right hook into his attacker's face and lifted him again. "I didn't think you'd actually have the gall to come after me. Why do you hate me, Neji?" he wiped a smidgen of blood from the Hyuga's face. "Oh, I forgot; I 'dishonored' your family." Neji sneered angrily and spat a bit of his blood into Naruto's face.

"Fuck you, 'Youko Naruto!'" he screeched. "I swear I'm gonna kill you for dishonoring my bloodline by marrying my sister!" Naruto, who'd been keeping himself as calm as possible, reached out with his right hand and clasped Neji's neck very tightly in his grip. If there was one thing he hated above all else, was when people called him 'Youko Naruto,' as though he were the demon fox that assaulted the village. He partially _was_ a youko—a demon fox—but only at a hundred percent power.

"For your information, Neji, I have to practically be fully charged for my Kyuubi side to reveal itself," he said, tightening his grip, "and furthermore, if you call me that again…well…remember that all I gotta do is squeeze. What's your move, fucker? Your sister loves me, and I love her, and you'll have to do a hell of a lot better than this if you ever hope to surpass me. You've always claimed to be better because you're branch house? So much for that. You're drunk half the time, the other half, you're trying to kill me. Get your life back in order, you waste of blood." He released his grip. Turning around to leave the restaurant, Neji grabbed his kunai and drew his arm back to shove the blade into Naruto's neck. Kakashi took the Hyuga's wrist in his hand before he could strike. Not that Naruto wasn't waiting for this to happen, though; he wanted to blow a hole through the man who'd lost to him in the first jounin exams. It was that fight between him and Neji that drove a wedge between the two, and brought Hinata closer to Naruto. Neji would never forgive the "fox boy" for marrying into the Hyuga family. Since he could never stand up to Naruto in an honor fight to the death, he spent his days and nights in a drunken stupor.

"Put the knife down, Neji," Kakashi demanded, his grip on the verge of breaking Neji's wrist. "I'd hate to write you up, even though you deserve it." Naruto was out the door when he met a familiar figure.

"How're you doing, Anko?" Having said that, he saw Kakashi clam up inside. With a grin on his face, he turned his head. "Yes, Kakashi is right here."

Anko shook her head and stormed into the restaurant. "I'm gonna rip his balls off! How dare he grab a bite to eat _without_ me on the day our daughter's going for her jounin!"

"Anko," Kakashi miserably tried to argue, "you _know_ I'd never forget about you on this day…"

"Oh shut the hell up!"

Naruto chuckled a bit and stepped out onto the streets of Konoha, eagerly heading towards the Uchiha household to pick up his student for their daily training session. He couldn't help but notice the crowds of people who stood there and just stared at him. Even after all he'd done for the village, it still ate him up inside how they saw him for the demon fox that had terrorized Konoha all those years ago. In his twenties, even, he still felt empty when he wasn't around his wife. Invisible daggers seemed to tear through his heart as he kept on, walking ever so normally towards the house of someone he didn't hate, didn't like, yet they seemed to both understand. Some lonely nights Naruto would sit on his front porch, staring up at the stars with nothing to do in the dead of darkness, and wonder what could have been if Sakura had not been thrown out. He wondered about it every so often, although it didn't occur as regularly as those first couple weeks after she'd been kicked out. Finally, he realized, in his late teens, that he never was going to get the chance to see her again, and so he got over her enough to start his own life and his own family. His wife Hinata used to be so shy, he knew, and when they started dating, all the pieces just fell into place. She finally realized the cause of her crippling shyness and their wedding was a beautiful one, that not even the memory of Neji falling drunkenly into the cake could destroy. He loved nothing more than his wife, he hated nothing more than those who tried to take her out to get to him. He used his "connections" to ensure that she never got the missions that would threaten her own life. She'd protested, but she knew it was for her own good.

The door flung open before he could knock on it. Sasuke stood with a smile on his face that meant only one thing; he was in a good mood. Naruto didn't like it when Sasuke was in a good mood; it meant that there were going to be questions asked. "So, Naruto," he told his fellow jounin. "I heard a few minutes ago you got into a scuffle with Neji. Not that the asshole didn't deserve it, but what caused it _this time_?"

Naruto walked in. "Once again, he hates me for marrying his sister," the old, familiar answer he gave. "Your son Nuuto is progressing absolutely wonderfully for a genin. That's why I…"

"That's why you what, Naruto? Why you nominated him for the _chuunin exam_?!" Sasuke shouted. "Dear god, Naruto! You think a _six-year-old_ is experienced enough to undergo such a risk?"

The far-more-experienced-at-combat Naruto's expression dimmed. "Sasuke, I'm his cell commander," he carefully and thoughtfully explained. "If I think he's ready—which he is—I am obligated to do what I think will aid in the advancement of his shinobi talents."

"I'm his father, dammit, and I say he stays here!"

"Sasuke, you do realize that if you want to dispute my opinion, you're gonna have to challenge me to an honorable fight in the square; that's the rule for dissent between parents of underclass ninja and cell commanders." Naruto cocked a half-smile grin. "And you know what the outcome of _THAT_ would be."

"You simply don't understand! My son is NOT going to ever experience the horrors I had to endure during my time as a ninja thus far!" Naruto could not believe the severity of the denial in his fellow jounin's voice. Did Sasuke actually _believe_ that he could ever deny his son's inevitable journey? Did he think that he could keep his son from getting a horrible dose of _real life_?

"SASUKE!" He grabbed his fellow upper-class ninja by the collar. "LISTEN TO YOURSELF! Did you want the fate you knew you were gonna get?" He waited just a minute for his fellow ninja to come to his senses. "NO! OF COURSE NOT!" Realizing that forcefulness would only get him so far, he softened his angry tone to a friendly one. "So, what makes you think your son isn't gonna get the same crap you did?" It was at this point that the dark-haired Uchiha began to shed a few soft tears. The shaking of his head told Naruto that the experienced shinobi Sasuke was overrode the deep fatherly hope that he could shield his son from the horrors of shinobi lifestyle.

"I…I prayed…so long…so often," the Uchiha stammered. His voice cleared up through the tears. "I prayed my son would be the worst shinobi ever, that his skills would be so awful that he'd never make it past the academy _into_ the ranks of the genin, much less become a full-fledged battlefield-ranked shinobi. I hoped that my talent and my wife's talent would skip him entirely, so he'd never see death and horrors that ensue. Well, anyway, my son's in the training area with my wife. If my praying can't make him worse, maybe you can make him even more amazing."

Naruto gave a calm "thank you" and went towards the back room. The young boy he'd grown to care about as one of his best students, Nuuto, stood at the doorway to his father Sasuke's practice room, with a wide smile on his face. Naruto himself could not have imagined a better place to be at that particular moment than giving his wisdom of the issues that affected Shinobi lifestyle to the young genin.

"Sowhat'sontheagendaforthisafternoon,Naruto-sensei?" Nuuto peeped. In fact, he'd said it _so_ fast that for once, the patient jounin actually had to ask the kid to repeat his statement slower. To this request, Sasuke's dark-haired son replied, "So…what's…on…the…agenda…for…this…afternoon…Naruto-sensei?"

Naruto rolled his eyes. "You…don't…have…to…talk…like…Jiraiya!" he mimicked, bringing a laugh to both the son and the father. He wrapped his arm around the kid's shoulder and led him into the large, gym-like area in the back where the Sasuke stood behind his son as they prepared to square off. At the last minute, before the light-haired Naruto would have thrown himself full-on—albeit with a watered-down tone so as to even the fight—into combat mode, the father stepped in front of the son.

"Wait a minute, Naruto," Sasuke calmly ordered, his face turning into a challenging grin, "I want to see how good you are _before_ my son takes you on."

Naruto held up his index finger in halting fashion. "Now, Sasuke," he replied in his familiar smart-ass tone, "I know that you've always wanted to kill your brother, but I never knew that _you_ wanted to die." His calm way of pushing aside the Uchiha's demand for battle, told Sasuke that his chances of winning were closer to the zero on the probability range, yet he still wanted to see how much his closest rival had improved since his miserable second attempt at the chuunin exam, where among the newly-crowned chuunins, he was dead last. He also remembered Naruto's performance at the jounin exam (third right in front of Neji) where during the last fight against Rock Lee a vicious storm of energy erupted from within him and threatened to obliterate the arena in which the matches were being held. This was the soon-to-be unforgettable "incident;" the blonde shinobi had so badly been beaten by dog-brows that he had lost all feeling from the waist down. However, before he could fall unconscious, the Kyuubi finally succumbed, in a five minute-long desperation struggle against the sealing spell that had imprisoned him within the boy. It almost ripped _Naruto_ apart, much less the five unfortunate shinobi struck by wildly-flying energy bolts shooting off of him, and suffered second degree burns on forty percent of their bodies. The power, once it had ceased, healed him completely and allowed him to defeat Rock Lee thereafter with a single blow.

"Naruto, you and me, right now," he ordered. "Or you'll never set foot in this household again." Naruto's eyebrows shot upwards and his eyes widened.

"Oookaay…" he uttered, confused. "But don't cry when you're on the ground in pain!"

Before he even finished his sentence, he ducked below a furious midair roundhouse kick aimed at his head. It impressed him; Sasuke had moved the better part of fifteen feet in a blink's time. A blink's time, however, was still far too slow to keep up with Naruto. Bending concavely, he avoided a kick to his stomach, then leapt over a sweep kick, flipping over in midair to land on his feet behind his slightly frustrated opponent, elbowing him ever so mildly in the back of his neck. It essentially was no stronger than a love tap, but then again, a mere love tap from someone with an eighteen thousand year-old youko merged with twenty-plus years of pure skill reinforced by virtually never-ending training was stronger than a hard punch from some normal people.

_He's not half bad,_ Naruto thought as he waited for his opponent to jerk his body around violently, attempting to clothesline him on the spin, which he avoided with the most possible ease. As he bent over backwards to avoid a straight chop and returned with a vicious headbutt, he quickly augmented his thought with, _he's actually THREE-FOURTHS bad!_

_Dammit!_ shouted Sasuke in his mind. _How can the gulf between us be this great?! I'm a damned Uchiha!_ He gathered chakra in his fist, and using his sharingan to its utmost potential he perfectly predicted that his blonde opponent would be directly parallel to him on his right side at the moment he attempted to turn. Secure in this knowledge, he avoided turning, which would have put him in prime position for a match-ending strike. Instead, he drove his foot as hard as he could into the air, hitting Naruto the very moment he appeared next to him. Smiling inside, he then lifted his other leg's knee and smashed it into his fellow jounin's face even as his foe was reeling from the previous strike. Finally, he completed the powerful counter strike with a right forearm plowed carefully into the chest of Naruto, which had been bent forward thanks to the momentum of the previous strike that sent his head slightly backwards. It was the forearm strike that tossed Sasuke's rival ten feet across the room to land in a position akin to a runner's starting pose. A smile greeted both jounin's as Naruto quickly pulled himself to his feet. "Ha," Sasuke said, admiring how skilled his foe was. "It seems I'm still the best."

Naruto winked at him. "You'd think so from that last exchange, wouldn't you?" This question from the blonde cell commander confused Sasuke. What tricks were up the sleeve of Uzumaki Naruto? He quickly found out one of them as the jounin removed his puffy-looking jacket…and it hit the floor with the force of a dozen lead weights, putting an intricate series of cracks in the tiles immediately surrounding the impact zone. "The Naruto diet!" Sasuke's foe laughed. "By merely taking off my jacket, I've lost a whopping hundred and twenty-five pounds!" Sasuke could not immediately breathe as he attempted to pick up the jacket, and found it to require both arms. How could it be so heavy, Sasuke wondered, when he'd seen the blonde shinobi swing it over his head before with _one finger_?! "Aaannnndddd…" Sasuke looked up from the jacket to his opponent taking off each of his wristbands. "there goes…" he pulled them off and effortlessly hurtled them across the room, where the put dents in the wall. "…another five pounds each!" The dark-haired Uchiha swallowed as he waited for more weighted clothing to come off. "Can't forget that waistline," Naruto quipped, pulling off his belt. He let it drop, and it thudded sickeningly on the floor. It was as if Sasuke's chances of winning were a cookie, and the belt had crushed it to pieces. "A snap-quick belt removal lightens fifteen pounds from the belly area! Nuuto, how much weight have I lost just by following the Naruto diet?"

"Umm," Nuuto calculated quickly, laughing; it took a moment's time to think of the answer. "a hundred fifty pounds?"

"Thaaaat's right, ladies and gentlemen!" Naruto did not hesitate to add. "And the feet!" he kicked off each of his boots with a single leg motion each. They clanged seemingly angrily on the floor. "Let's NOT forget those feet, ladies and gentlemen! The wrong shoes can add a quarter of a hundred pounds each!"

"You've lost two hundred pounds with no physical effort, Naruto-sensei!" Nuuto quipped. His sensei lifted a single index finger above his head in infomercial host's style.

"That's the miracle of the Naruto diet!" he said. "That's just MY success story," he pulled an imaginary person to his side. "Let's hear some other stories where the Naruto diet has worked unfathomable works of weight loss, shall we? Oh wait; we were just in the middle of a fight, weren't we?"

Sasuke had seen enough of being embarrassed; he flung himself at his rival, fist extended with intent to bash Naruto's face in. However, with the newfound freedom from his weighted clothing, Naruto caught the fist—which possessed enough momentum to stop a fully loaded, fast moving freight train dead in its tracks—with as much effort as it took a person to lift a feather, and promptly hurled his foe over his head like a dirty Kleenex to slam face first into the entrance wall.

Naruto knelt closer to Sasuke's young son. "HE'S not a big fan of the Naruto Diet, is he Nuuto?"

Nuuto had a big grin across his face. "I guess you showed him what miraculous things the Naruto Diet can do!"

Naruto put his hands on his hips and stood erect in the form of a cheesy comic book super hero. "Da da da da da da DAAAAAA! The Naruto Diet saves the daaaayyy!"


	7. PRECHAPTER

Toguro Sakura

By Moonraker One

A/N: Anyone fancy themselves good at Japanese? In my story, Hinata's has a signature move I made up. How does one say the "Shadow Death Kick" part of Shadow Death Kick no Jutsu in Japanese? Also, I don't know any of Neji's moves, so forgive me if I screw up on his attack strategy.

PRE-CHAPTER – Part of The Jounin Exams; Eight Years Earlier

No less than five hundred of the chuunin judged worthy of their position in shinobi society stood in the middle of a circular arena, surrounded on all sides by patient onlookers sitting in seats on each of the nine floors above the ground floor level. Many of the onlookers were parents, many were the shinobis' cell commanders, but in any case, there were enough people present for an opera, much less a gathering for full-scale one on one combat. In a row of fifty, Naruto stood directly between the girl he'd secretly had a crush on for a few years now, Hyuga Hinata, and her "holier-than-thou-because-I'm-branch-house" brother, Hyuga Neji. He knew that they had grown a bit apart in the few years since the whole "Sakura's banishing" event, which had rocked the entire village with a bang and then died down with a whimper. He hated how so many people, even the relatives of Sakura's late parents, could merely continue their lives as though nothing was the matter in the years after her eviction. If at least ONE person had committed suicide because of her memory, if at least ONE person had fought the former Lord Hokage's position on the matter, and if at least ONE person had turned to alcoholism because they had no other means of surviving with the memory that they were the cause of her being removed from the only home she'd ever had, he would have felt as though she would be vindicated. Instead, what he saw was almost blasphemous; her _own adoptive parents_, were celebrating their anniversary just weeks after their niece's removal, and the topic never crossed anyone's lips. She was a young woman with a demonic power, she was nothing more than a girl, but she was HIS crush, dammit, and they should at least cry a little for HIS crush.

The talkative audience instantly shut up when Lady Hokage lifted the microphone to her mouth and ordered the gatherers to be calm. "Quiet, please," she'd calmly ordered, and everyone did so. "The annual Jounin exams are to take place starting tonight in the arena. This is expected to take at least two weeks, and thus it will be conducted as efficiently as possible. The row in front will fight first, the lots drawn earlier will determine which person you shall fight first. Go!" The ten rows filed through a series of doors on the edge of the circle created by the ground floor. Once all the chuunin had gone in the back area to prepare, the first couple of fighters were soon called by the presiding jounin, Maito Gai.

"The first couple of fighters will be," he pulled out his clipboard and read the first set of names. "Hyuga Hinata," the crowd went utterly wild at the announcement of a Hyuga's name, "and Yakushi Kabuto." Several of the older jounin, such as Kakashi, who'd gotten _used_ to seeing this punk around, looked at each other in disapproval of Lady Hokage's forgiveness of his sins and permission for him to take the exam. It had been widely accepted among the upper levels that Kabuto was a former servant of Orochimaru, the great snake shinobi whose whereabouts had been lost. Among the chuunin, he was just as vilified, after his brutal beating of Sasuke a few years before in a private scuffle, much to the chagrin of the girls of the village. The sole exception to this was his current opponent, Hyuga Hinata, who had fought—to a near victory—him before, and began to call him "helmet boy," for a "Kabuto" was a type of samurai headpiece.

"I hope you realize I'm not going to take it easy on you like I did last time," he warned her. He'd fought her before, and every time she managed to prove him wrong in his belief that he was far superior to her. She didn't understand his unexplainable hatred towards her, for she never had done anything to him before he tried to beat her up after a random encounter. Nevertheless, she took up her fighting stance and gathered her chakra energies.

"I th-think you're f-f-full of it h-he-helmet bo-boy," she scorned him. The familiar gong sound set the combat into high gear, with him throwing himself at her with every bit of speed that he had. He threw a violent kick in the direction of her head, and she just barely squeaked below it. His next hit connected, though, and she found herself thrown backwards; halfway on her flight to the back wall, he caught up with her and plowed eight hits into her abdomen and face as quickly as he possibly could. The fury of the intense blows caused her to put a serious dent in the wall. She scarcely had time to yank herself from the indentation she put in the circular wall before a series of strikes transpired in the space of an eye's blink. First, he dealt a sweep kick that knocked her ankles and caused her to fall backwards onto her back, only she never made it there. A second strike consisting of a powerful upward axe kick threw her viciously into the air, and he waited for her to be at his shoulder level before punching her straight across at her face, throwing her several feet to land face down. She put her hands down and ricocheted upward and flipped back onto her feet before she would have struck the ground, but the moment she was upright he kneed her as powerfully as he could in her lower back. She let out a screech as she felt her vertebrae creak. Her whole body felt heavy as she fell face down on the ground. He smiled and raised a victorious arm high.

"I told you I'd win," he whispered to her. He prepared to walk out of the ring area when he sensed her stirring.

It took seemingly all of her effort to flip her body over. When she managed to do so, the lights from the ceiling began to get wavy around her, dizziness told her mind to stay put. Her desire to improve, though, told her to get up. Her back muscles treated this like a dire mistake, and let her know of it the entire way up. On her feet seemed like a good place to be, until her surroundings started to get blurry. She knew it would be either now or never that the best time to act would be. He shook his head and prepared to fight back. She barely saw him, but what she did see allowed her to pull off a move she rarely used.

"SHADOW DEATH KICK NO JUTSU!" she shouted, making the familiar hand signs. He threw himself towards her with intent to kill, but before he could, a black aura surrounded her, twisting and turning as he charged on, until finally it shot out of her body like a rocket. The darkened figure had all the features of Hyuga Hinata, but was strictly shades of dark bluish-purple. The figure, which possessed speed unheard of—even for some of the older jounin—extended its right foot out jousting style as it skyrocketed towards him. It took only a microsecond to reach him, colliding ever-so-viciously with his chest, the foot seemingly entering his chest cavity as he felt all his ribs crack at once. The pressure on his lungs prevented him from screaming as he shot ten feet backwards and smashed through the back door. She fell to her knees in exhaustion, with a broad smile on her face as the shadow figure of her dissolved. Had she won? An official reached through the broken door at the seemingly unconscious frame of Kabuto. He felt the neck of the boy, and turned to the crowd with a sullen look. There was a collective gasp after what was said next.

"He's dead," the man whispered. Now, it was not the fact that an opponent had been killed that shocked almost everyone present, but rather, the fact that he'd been killed by _Hinata_. She was the one girl that never stood up for herself; she was the one girl that suffered from shyness so crippling that no one could speak to her, for she would always be too scared. She buried her face in her hands, and began to cry.

"Winner of the match," Lady Hokage said with a slightly upset look, "Hyuga Hinata." Crying used up what little energy Hinata had left, so she fell forward, exhausted.

"Come on!" Orochimaru shouted, throwing his foot hard into Sakura's gut, launching her through a series of trees. She had grown to hate these training exercises that he used to train her, although even she had to agree that it was somewhat necessary in order to bring out her full strength. So far, she'd displayed a great deal of power, and he knew it would only be a few more years and then she'd equal his power. "FIGHT HARDER!"

She quickly shot upwards to a standing position and wiped a smidgen of blood from her cheek; a secret she'd kept from him from the day he'd found her, was that it was actually a year ago during an espionage mission that went awry, that she found out she had more power than her master. He was miles away gathering subordinates, so there was no possible way that he could have known, but she had more than equaled his power at only half of hers. Assessing her skinny arms, she knew that five percent of her power wouldn't be sufficient to take him down. The only reason she had her power this low during such an important training exercise was that she wanted him to think he still had quite a bit of ways to go in order to mold her to his fullest. Clenching her fists, she expanded her power—and her muscle mass—to fifteen percent of her maximum capacity. Her entire body bulked out, causing her clothes strained under the extra mass. He didn't know if he'd ever get used to seeing a girl with muscles like hers, even if they were a direct result of her increased power.

"Ah! Now THAT'S a power-up!" he noticed, throwing a roundhouse kick at her head, and marveling when she could now duck beneath it easily. He threw off his weighted coat, which added the better part of two hundred pounds to his body, and his power went up predictably. She once again had problems keeping up with him, but outright refused to show him the truth of how much more powerful than him she really was. She'd never before gone to her absolute maximum—one hundred percent power—for the simple reason that she didn't know how terribly oppressive she'd become. That, and she didn't want to be caught destroying a village and find herself on the receiving end of a sealing jutsu like the one that put Kyuubi in Naruto. As Orochimaru zoomed in for another flurry of punches and kicks, she smirked.

_Let's see him handle twenty-three percent,_ she thought, grinning. He prepared for a vicious attack as he saw her muscles grow even larger.

"Match two," the official said, reading off his clipboard again, "Hyuga Neji," once again the crowd went wild at the sound of a Hyuga's name, "and Uzumaki Naruto." Neji's mouth cocked into an evil grin as he stepped out of the back area. He'd seen the fox boy steal a few glances at his sister Hinata, and today would be Naruto's punishment for those glances. He wanted to kill the young shinobi more than anyone in the village, because of what Naruto represented. He saw only the boy who did not have to be with anyone else to be trained by a sensei—he had the fox. He saw only a boy who he, among other things, did NOT consider innocent—the mere fact that the fox was in him incriminated him by means of association. Neji shook his head as he watched his opponent take up stance; above all else, one predominant reason for his undying hatred for Uzumaki Naruto superseded all others.

_I want that youko's power, dammit, because I'd know exactly how to wield it!_

Naruto knew what his foe was thinking as he prepared for the gong to ring. Neji wanted the curse that Naruto was forced to endure, for reasons none other than the power it inevitably involved. He wished his Hyuga opponent had known the sorrow that was a result of knowing that others hated you for what was inside, not for what you were. To know that you were held in highest contempt merely for what you represented, was a despicable thing no human being should experience, yet his foe wanted to endure it. As the gong rang, he shook his head and prepared for his opening attack.

He knew he'd have no hope of defeating Neji if he didn't do it immediately. Neji had been training only sparsely during the last year since he was declared chuunin, while Naruto had been working his ass off under the most difficult training possible. He doubted his ability to defeat someone as skilled at taijutsu (the physical aspect of the shinobi's fight) as say, Rock Lee, but he _knew_ he could easily defeat a slacker like Neji if he only tried his hardest.

Neji felt a sickening churning in his stomach as he threw himself at his foe; he knew the stance his opponent had used was one of Kyuubi's fighting styles, which proved to the Hyuga once and for all that the demon fox was in fact training Naruto during the off-time between exams. The whirling flip kick that the blonde shinobi used to throw Neji into one of the side walls was a demon fox technique. He had utmost faith that his speed exceeded Naruto's, that is, until he threw himself at his foe with all his might and just missed him by a micrometer as his opponent disappeared in a poof of smoke. He looked left and right, but couldn't find nor sense his enemy, until he felt a rising knee connect with his back and hurl him into a wall. Landing gracefully on his feet, Naruto smiled a challenging smile and made a "come at me" motion with his right hand. "I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" he screamed, propelling himself forward.

_He's really good_, Naruto thought to himself as he ducked beneath yet another attack from his foe. _I never expected him to still be this good after a year of slacking off and taking easy missions._ He prepared for his opponent to throw a powerful kick at his head—which, unbelievably, Neji actually did—and thus he hopped a bit to take it on his chest instead. The reason he did this was to be in prime position to deal a mighty strike to the Hyuga's back and immediately thereafter, a separate attack to his right chin. It was this attack that launched Neji onto his back, seven feet away from the attack point.

"Damn you!" he screeched. Wiping his face, Neji couldn't believe it; he, a Hyuga for christ's sake, was one blow away from a KO by the likes of Naruto. He knew he had to utilize his strongest attack in order to win this match. He began making signs and his aura began to change. Naruto saw this coming a proverbial mile away and threw off his weighted coat, letting his speed and chakra's go up all at once. Neji was startled by this; the whole time, his opponent dominated him while _wearing weighted clothing?!_ He shook it off; if he slowed down on this move, stick a fork in him, he'd be done. "HEAVENLY WHI…"

_Oh NO you don't!_ Naruto shouted inside his mind. What happened next blew everyone's mind, not the least of whom was Neji himself. In the space of an eye's blink, the blonde shinobi nailed the most powerful roundhouse kick he'd ever dealt in his life, to the stomach of Neji, throwing him backwards like a rocket. When the Hyuga collided with the wall, the shock of his impact left a six foot wide impact crater in the wall. After falling from the wall, Neji landed face first on the ground, folding up almost like an accordion as he went unconscious.

A whole minute of breathlessness from everyone passed, and then Lady Hokage pulled the microphone to her lips. "Um…winner! Uzumaki Naruto!" she paused a minute. "Will someone please make sure Neji isn't dead?"

A jounin serving as a referee touched his hand to Neji's neck. "He's still alive and kicking, Lady Hokage! I think he's gonna need a stretcher!"

Kakashi, from up in the stands, turned to Gai. "I think he's gonna need a beer," he joked.


	8. CHAPTER SIX

Toguro Sakura

By Moonraker One

A/N: Last time's "pre-chapter" was meant to introduce an important couple ofchapters, so expect one before every important chapter. Also, this chapter will be extremely short, but I swear I will make up for it next chapter. The reason I cut this one so short is because I wanted to do next chapter covering the entire chuunin examination at once. WARNING: this chapter has a bit of violence that might be offensive. Also, I'm quite sad that reviewer Istar (whose review I've requested to be removed), views this story as a mere "excuse for Naruto and Sakura to" show off their demon powers. If he'd only have the patience to read through until I reach the end, he'd retract that statement in a heartbeat...I can't say any more for risk of revealing the ending...

CHAPTER SIX - The traitor within

Uzumaki Naruto sat on the stool at his favorite ramen bar, sucking up gobs of noodles with each gulp. He sloppily finished his third bowl and drank a long, refreshing gulp from his flask of alcohol, grinning as he wiped his mouth and watched a dark-haired jounin drag himself into the noodle bar. A cold pack he held against his forehead; he was using it to treat a throbbing headache caused by the Naruto Diet the night before. "Okay, okay," Sasuke admitted, "you're better than I am." Yamanaka Ino, sitting at her own place at the other side of the restaurant, made a motion as if stabbing herself in the heart with an imaginary knife, and then collapsing onto her table. Naruto snickered as he shifted his glance from her to his fellow upper class ninja.

"Aaaaannnnddd?" Naruto said, dragging the word on as long as possible for most effect. Sasuke gritted his teeth as he prepared to speak; if there was one pet peeve he had, it was being humbled. It made Naruto smile even wider to think it had happened in the presence of Nuuto, Sasuke's only son.

"You're…the best shinobi…I've ever trained with," he grudgingly admitted. He waited for another painful "and," but instead, the blonde shinobi began to clap.

"I admire your candor. Now sit your ass down and eat." It was obvious, as Sasuke ordered his first bowl, that he had a concern on his mind.

"Naruto, I have a question."

He grinned at Sasuke's question. "You've got questions," he remarked, "we've got answers." He pointed to the area of his torso through which the Kyuubi had been shoved those twenty four years ago.

"Two hundred pounds of weighted clothing is absolutely incredible. I can't walk for three days if I try anywhere near _ninety_. On an absolutely good day, I'll go up to a hundred for one hour, but how can you keep up two hundred pounds of extra weights _all the time_!"

He patted his fellow shinobi's shoulder, reassuringly. "Work your way up, Sasuke, work your way up." Sasuke rolled his eyes; of _course_ it would be easy for someone like Naruto, who had an inhuman source of power within him. Just the very thought of Naruto having the power of the demon fox caused him a deal of concern. Because the Kyuubi had succumbed to the sealing jutsu, his power and all his super-heightened demonic senses had been left with the blonde jounin. It was the primary reason that most of the villagers that still held a grudge against Naruto were the ones that considered him _to be_ the demon fox _himself_, and not just the container. He pictured his fellow jounin standing in the middle of the village, burning it to shreds with only a small fraction of his power; Konoha and many of its inhabitants certainly would deserve it for the hell they put him through. Then he dismissed the thought, for the simple reason that each upper class ninja had been forced to take an oath to protect the village at the cost of their own lives, and few had held that bargain up as high as the one who regularly came back from A-rank missions without a scratch on him, Uzumaki Naruto.

"I gotta go, now, Naruto," Sasuke said, finishing his helping and paying his tab. "The chuunin examinations begin." Naruto almost choked on his bowl of ramen.

"Oh shit!" he cried, finishing his bowl quickly and paying his tab. "I almost forgot!" As he dashed out the door, he thought of what Sakura must be doing at this point in time.

_I hope you remembered me_, _Sakura_, he thought to himself, feeling nostalgic for no apparent reason.

* * *

"Wait right here," Orochimaru whispered to his two fellow shinobi. He'd been tracking a girl for about seven hours now and he knew that there was no way he would trick a Konoha shinobi as skilled as Uzumaki Naruto was, without actually using the technique he'd used on only certain occasions. He'd made sure to bite this girl a week prior during a routine venture through the forest, so that if he received a wound that would kill him, he could transfer his soul to her body. Koji's Ludo and Luuda watched him disappear into the thicker area of the forest and sneak up upon the girl and her trio. 

_I really don't understand the technique that Orochimaru-sensei uses to chain his soul to the physical plane,_ Ludo said to his sister via the telepathy jutsu. She looked at him like he lacked a significant amount of brain power.

_Ludo_, she telepathically replied, _it's a very rare, very forbidden art. Don't worry about it. A good shinobi can learn a similar one if they apply themselves._

It simply astonished the Koji siblings just how horrifyingly precise he was at killing the trio and then inserting his soul into the body of the girl. Both siblings wondered how he could get used to undergoing something so unique as to suddenly be in the body of a person of the opposing gender. Nevertheless, his chakra seemed exactly the same. He (she) approached them and they rejoined him after a few seconds.

"You got the phony paperwork?" Orochimaru inquired. Ludo nodded and handed him the fake documentation. "Good; now let's proceed to the next phase of our plan; the infiltration of Konohagakure in order to gather more information about their military." Both underclass ninja followed him through the precise pathway that had always been the shortest route into the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

* * *

"ATTENTION EVERYONE!" shouted Lady Hokage, from her point high above the audience. "Today, begins the annual chuunin examinations. If you have been nominated, you should gather later on this afternoon in the main meeting area outside the forest of death. Once all of the genin from surrounding villages have arrived, the matches will begin. These are one-on-one, single elimination matches. A person loses only when they are either dead or unconscious. Recall that the forest is called the 'forest of death' for a reason; certain areas will be sectioned off, giving underclass ninja the ability to use the trees to their advantage. Are there any questions?" 

One genin raised his hand. "Lady Hokage, explain the groups," he requested.

"Each group of six shall fight amongst each other until one is the winner," she explained. "The winner of each group will fight a jounin, where the soul purpose of the fight is to land a single blow. This year's chuunin exam has been altered to mimic that of Arashigakure village, which is well-known for only having the best chuunin. Naturally, we have to outdo them this year." A collective round of laughter came from most of the older jounin, who knew all too well the village hidden in the storm. "If there are no more questions, then you may get in your groups for later on this afternoon."

* * *

On the immediate outside of the village, the dense group of young genin from all across the nation had gathered, but near the back end stood a trio. Two girls, one boy, the most powerful trio from Arashi, had arrived at the gate. The guards checked each and every piece of paperwork carried by the genin wanting to take the exam, and stopped Orochimaru's trio only because they looked suspicious. However, when they presented paperwork that looked official enough, they were passed through with no hesitation. _Good job, Koji's Ludo and Luuda,_ the great snake shinobi thanked his young partners. _You are a great duo._

"So, Hinata, which proctor is looking over your trio?" Naruto asked his young wife. She smiled and held his hand tighter.

"I believe they're under Ino's iron-fisted rule," she joked. Naruto couldn't help but chuckle at Hinata's little joke; she found it easy to make him laugh regardless of what she said. As they walked towards the rest area to wait for their summoning to the forest for the trials, both husband and wife sensed a strange energy, and they seemed to be the only ones to feel it. Hinata could not locate its source, but her husband did. He looked across to his left, across the field, and detected it; a young woman in her late teens, hair so red it looked blood-stained, blue shirt and skirt. His eyes narrowed as he recognized the aura.

_Orochimaru, you bastard,_ Naruto thought to himself. _I won't let you bite anyone else._ However, before he could go and yell at the snake shinobi, Gai approached him and Hinata.

"Excuse me, Naruto," he said, "but you and your wife are needed in the forest for a pre-exam discussion by lady Hokage!"

"But…!"

"Now, please, or she will be mad at you!"

Naruto clenched his teeth and stared in anger at the snake shinobi cloaked inside a girl's body. _Another time, you…!_ Without saying a word, he and his wife left for the forest.

* * *

"Okay, we're doing good," Orochimaru told his team, his voice that of the girl's whose body he took. "We just have to…" 

Sasuke approached the trio. "Excuse me, miss," he interrupted, "but can I see your team leader in my office?" He pointed straight at Orochimaru.

Orochimaru looked left and right, confused. "What's this about? I wasn't aware we did anything wro…"

"Now? Please!" At Sasuke's request, the snake ninja abandoned his teammates and followed him down the dirt path into the main building, and up the stairs into the long hallway. They continued all the way to the fourth office on the left. Orochimaru who had been doing his best to hide his confusion, and his thoughts about why Sasuke had separated him from his group, and what the implications of it meant, but he finally asked his question.

"Why're we here?" he asked. "This is Kakashi's office." Sasuke immediately shut the door and locked it. "What is this about…?"

Without a further word, Sasuke wrapped his arms around Orochimaru's female body, embracing tightly and kissing passionately. Leaning forward, he tilted, bringing them both to the floor, his arms still tightly locking in for the kiss. He then grasped the female Orochimaru's shoulders and pressed his back against the floor.

"What the hell are you doing!" he finally shouted. He grabbed Sasuke's wrists and applied counterforce, but in response Sasuke only held him harder against the floor. When Sasuke grabbed Orochimaru's female self's shirt and pulled it off, the snake ninja immediately saw, via the look in Sasuke's eyes, what was intended next. The great snake shinobi began to quiver in terror.

"Oh…no…" he falteringly said. "Oh god please NOOOOO!"

* * *

"Naruto-sama!" Upon hearing the voice, the patient young jounin rolled his eyes and swiveled his wooden chair around. "Naruto-sama! We need your assistance at once!" Neither him nor Hinata knew what the problem was. Nevertheless, he stood up from his seat. "Naruto-sama! A crisis is at hand!" At this statement he stood at attention. 

"What's wrong!" he practically shouted.

"We need your help! A young woman was just found in Kakashi's office! She's been raped!" Every jounin immediately looked in dire shock at Kakashi, whom they knew had been at the meeting with them the entire time. Nevertheless, the blonde shinobi ran towards the main building.

"She's inside," one of the chuunin said to Naruto as he reached the shut door to the office. "She's refusing to speak, and apparently the perpetrator slipped away without detection."

Naruto pushed them aside. "Let me in, and give me complete privacy with her," he instructed them. "I want none of you within shouting distance; when I am finished speaking to her, I will come to you." Most of the chuunin shot him weird glances. "C'mon!" he shouted in response. "I'm not perverted like that! Who among you were there when this sort of thing happened to Lord Kazekage of Sand village's daughter? Nobody except me! I'm good with talking to people, and as a superior officer, I command you to leave!" They reluctantly obeyed. Naruto rolled his eyes, and opening the door, stepped quickly into the room and locked the door. He looked at the battered form of Orochimaru, sitting against Kakashi's desk, blank stare on his female face.

"Uzumaki Naruto, I beg of you! Don't let me live! Kill me!"

Naruto knelt down in front of him. "I'd love to…Orochimaru…but I can't. You see," he waved his hand, and the room seemed to spin rapidly around. "I'm too busy teaching you a lesson." Once the spin completed, Orochimaru examined himself; he'd been returned to the male form he had earlier! Furthermore, no damage had been dealt to his frame, which led him to one conclusion.

"No…"

"Yes!" Naruto argued. "It was all an illusion! A very detailed illusion kept up over a week's time. From the moment I accidentally spotted you in the woods, I lured you into a trap with a girl that didn't really exist. Since your spell only works on people that really are there, I made it seem like you succeeded. I even made a kage bunshin of myself look exactly like Sasuke and go about the evil intentions on you, even though the bunshin couldn't exactly do anything to you since it was just smoke and vapor disguised."

Orochimaru felt his undamaged face. "You're…lying…" he uttered, speechless.

"This is my lesson to you. Never go back to where you've worn out your welcome!"

Naruto led his captive prisoner out of the door. Several chuunin standing down the hall looked in sheer amazement. "This 'girl' that was raped? Really Orochimaru the entire time. Send the ANBU."


	9. CHAPTER SEVEN

Toguro Sakura

By Moonraker One

Author's note: Ok, I lied about covering the _entire _chuunin exam in this chapter, but at least I covered a lot of it.

CHAPTER SEVEN - Konoha's Chuunin Exam

The forest of death had seldom seen quite as few young shinobi inside of it as there was now, having all gathered for the opportunity to prove themselves worthy of the rank of chuunin. Almost all of the younger jounin were the ones placed in charge of overseeing the individual groups of six, whereas the older jounin were primarily responsible for overseeing the actual results of the fights within the groups. Hinata, who sat in her chair near her group's resting area, looked at the variations among the youngsters about to take one of the most important exams in their shinobi careers, and couldn't help but smile. She saw a few older teenagers between seventeen and nineteen, in the same groups with kids as young as not to even be ten years old. Some had taken this exam many times and failed, while for a lot this was the first time, and she remembered the first time she had to retake the exam. She secretly wished them all the best of luck, but knew that by the day's end, less than a third of them would actually become middle-level shinobi.

"Um, Naruto-sama?" The blonde jounin swiveled his chair around, and looked at the two teenagers sitting in his office. He recognized them instantly as the two young members of Orochimaru's trio, prior to his capture, anyway. He couldn't believe the luck he had a week prior; he was just showing young Nuuto around the woods, and while watching for dangers, he happened to overlook the snake shinobi searching for prey. His plan he hatched in a moment, and amazingly it worked. But at this very moment, he had two spies from a village that otherwise had a treaty with Konoha. He had to take this very carefully; if they were spies, he'd have to send them to interrogation and eventual imprisonment or execution. He knew that Orochimaru would be executed without trial given his past history, but what punishment would lady Hokage deal for these two? After all, they had their entire lives ahead of them, all of their futures, and it depended all on the actions of one shinobi who'd captured the uncapturable. "You wanted to see us?"

He shut the door behind them with a mild release of chakra. Clearing his throat, he stood up from his chair and used a force-field illusion to soundproof his office to anyone listening. "Koji's Ludo and Luuda," he began, "you two are in a great deal of trouble. You've come here with a known evil shinobi, a criminal, and with that any jury you are brought before will judge you as spies. You may be treated differently than your team leader, due to the fact that one, you have no past criminal record, and two, you are not of age to be tried as adults, but please realize that he will be executed without question." He smiled and winked, making a few rapid hand signals to open up a telepathic link between him and the two teens. _But now that we've gotten all that official bullshit out of the way that I've had, by regulation, to tell you, do you have what I asked you for?_

Naruto made careful assurance that no one outside could sense what was going on inside. Then, with a wink and a wavy, water-like effect, the two teens let up the genjutsu hiding their true identities, making it known what they really were. By the markings on their faces and the tails sticking out of their pants, their true identities were unmistakable; they were youko in human form. Luuda, the older of the two demon foxes morphed into human forms, presented Naruto with a stack of cards she'd been hiding in her pocket. _Without problem or suspicion from others, Naruto-sama_, she telepathically said. _Burned with my own chakra onto the surface of these cards is all the information you would ever need to know about the actions of Arashigakure village._

Ludo had his own gift of information to bear. _Naruto-sama,_ he mentally projected, _I've done a series of investigations on the military strengthening of Arashi, and I've assembled a similar deck of cards._ He presented Naruto with his own set of blank cards. The blonde shinobi knew that the cards had been retuned to his own chakra pattern, so that he and only he could view the content of the cards.

"Thank you," he said to the two youko as they reactivated the genjutsu that concealed their true selves, and he let down the illusion that made private everything that had just happened. "You may now go." He waited for them to be out of shouting distance, and then he shut his door again.

"You know something, Naruto," Sasuke said, climbing out from under Naruto's desk. He'd suppressed his power as well as he possibly could, and both he and Naruto covered his presence up from the otherwise super potent senses of the two demon foxes that had just been in the office. "You are one clever, manipulative bastard. How did you…?"  
"Make all this possible?" finished Naruto. He shook his head. "Simple. I knew the Koji's from Kyuubi's memories; they were a clan of youko that hid among the humans for eons without being detected. Furthermore, when Kyuubi gave his soul up to give his power to me, I gained the senses, abilities, and wisdom of the most powerful demon in existence."

"You knew from the moment you saw them that they were youko?" inquired a shocked Sasuke. "I mean, how could _anyone_ crack the illusion covering them! I sensed something too but even my sharingan couldn't break their genjutsu!"

"Only demons can see each other for what they truly are."

"But the plan of yours!"

Naruto raised an index finger, which signaled that he had a handy explanation ready. "I knew they'd be absolutely loyal to the Kage of Arashigakure. I knew they'd give me the absolute most general, vague information possible."

Sasuke read the data on the cards. "This…this is pitiful! No one could extract any kind of secrets about the storm village from this!"

"I could read their minds as they spoke to me," Naruto added. "They may as well have told me everything they knew. Take those cards to Lady Hokage, and tell her I'll explain everything. The only thing I couldn't extract from them was the identity of their village leader."

"But…but," Sasuke argued, "they're enemies! How will you take care of _them_ without causing a war between villages!"

"They will be placed into an overflow group because every other group will be filled. I have two of Kyuubi's pups disguised as human teenage shinobi's filed into this group with instructions to kill both of them and make it appear to be a fighting accident."

"_Overflow group_! I don't think we have enough jounin to handle an overflow group, because the specialized ones won't be involved this year…and…"

"It will be proctored by my sister Naruko."

Sasuke looked at him in confusion. "But you don't have a sister Naru…oh, _THAT'S _it…" He realized that by "my sister Naruko" the blonde shinobi meant a Kage Bunshin of himself in clothed Sexy no Jutsu form. The young jounin simply could not be more amazed at his fellow shinobi's ability to come up with a powerful plan very quickly. "How do you do it? I mean, you come up with these brilliant ideas on the spur of the moment!"

"I'm just that good, dobe," he uttered, exiting the office. Sasuke wanted to storm off towards him in anger, but reminded himself with a quick glance at the cards that he had a mission to do. It amazed him at the mere thought of how much planning took place on the part of Naruto. He couldn't understand how the blonde shinobi got so good at making the most complex strategies in existence look like nothing.

* * *

"Attention, underclass shinobi!" announced Lady Hokage, using a jutsu to amplify her voice, as there was no P.A. system in the forest of death. "You have all been very good so far at keeping within the boundaries of the forest; please remain so. Do not leave the forest or you will be disqualified. Now, the fights shall commence momentarily, so make sure you remain with your groups. I wish you all the best of luck, and make sure you keep yourselves alive. Killing, while frowned upon, is permitted by all genin; I suspect that many will be aiming to take your heads." And with a blink, the message ended. Kakashi, who had been placed in charge of the assigning, had in front of him a large box of cards. Lifting them above his head, he waited for Lady Hokage's que. "Inside this box, is the list of all the groups and which jounin's will be proctoring them. Please come forward and get the card with your name on it." Soon, a long line of underclass ninja formed directly in front of Kakashi's box. From there it was only a matter of moments before each of the several hundred underclass shinobi had their information and were on their way to their groups.

Koji's Ludo & Luuda smiled as they headed towards the overflow group, created by Gai at the last moment as a solution for the extra six that couldn't be put in with any other group. They were smiling, at least, until they caught a glimpse of the last two members of their group to arrive. Ludo began to quiver. His sister was leaning against a tree, so she didn't initially see the cause of his fright. "Ludo, what the hell..." she stated. Then, almost by accident, she caught a glimpse of them as well. Her eyes became as wide as saucers. "N...NO! They can't be!"

_Go ahead, _the older-looking of the two telepathically said to both Koji's. _Tell the othes who we are. Who'd believe you? Who'd believe, not only that WE'RE youko's, who'd believe that we're the children of the Great Youko Lord Kyuubi? None save for yourselves and Naruto-sama can see through our disguise. He'd never blab. So go ahead._

Ludo clenched his teeth and silently growled, letting his demon eyes show for only a brief instant. _Oh yeah!_ he retaliated. _We're the pups of great bandit youko Kojimokuto Kurama! What makes your father greater than ours!_

Of the two approaching the group, the older-looking female with the red hair smiled, holding back her little brother who mentally screamed, _Yours is a bandit! Ours is the king of ALL youko!_ He fired off, but his older sister silenced him with a forceful stare.

_They're not worth it, Naraabi,_ she told him. _We'll handle them soon enough._

"Attention, members of the overflow group!" shouted the clothed sexy no jutsu Kage Bunshin of Naruto, acting as 'Uzumaki Naruko.' "The first fight of this group will be between Koji Ludo and Zaram Tokuubi." The female offspring of Kyuubi, disguised as a human, popped her knuckles and stepped into the fighting area marked off by tape. Her opponent Ludo let a good portion of his demonic chakra move into his arms, increasing his power a great bit but expanding his arms only slightly. He sneered and waited for the proctor of his group to sound the gong for the match to begin.

The moment the sound rang out, Ludo threw himself at his opponent with the utmost speed. One of his punches sailed at his opponent, yet she ducked beneath it with speed he could not even catch as a blur. He twisted slightly right and flung an uppercut; the motion was fast, fluid and crisp, and he almost caught her on the chin, yet she leaned her head back to avoid it. In response, she swung her arm around, nailing him directly on the nose with her elbow. The cartilage crushed easily, yet his demon blood recovered it immediately. However, he didn't have time to think as her standing side kick rocketed into his chest and blasted him backwards. She was impressed by his recovering powers; he smashed into a six foot thick tree and only left an intricate series of shatter marks. When he got up, she winked at him; he got pissed and zoomed back towards her. The next few minutes surprised everyone in the waiting area, for they'd heard that the Koji's were Arashigakure's finest. Yet, as they stood, they were watching a whole lot of swinging, and not a whole lot of dodging. Tokuubi could not be happier; in five hundred years, she'd never had a demon opponent this good fight her. Only three-fourths as strong as her father, she still had considerable power, and had trampled quite a few demons. Ludo would have been impressed if this hadn't been a fight to the death; she was at forty-nine percent power in a human disguise, yet he actually came close to hitting her with each hit. He failed to notice the reason behind her lack of retaliation: she was making signs with her right hand.

His last attack of the match landed on her left forearm, which she placed in its trajectory to stop the blow. In the very same moment, her other hand she finished the jutsu and shoved the energy gathered on her palm into his gut. He felt nothing as the fatal poisoned energy entered his abdomen. He did feel it, however, when she ended the match by delivering a vicious roundhouse kick to him. He sailed backwards and slammed into the tree upside-down and face first.

Naruto's disguised Kage Bunshin scribbled on a clip board. "Zaram Tokuubi wins the match by K.O.!" As Tokuubi walked toward the waiting area, Luuda grabbed the demon by her neck. She knew she had far more power than Luuda, so she had no qualm about her neck in a grip.

"What did you do to him!" she demanded in a whisper.

Tokuubi sneered. "Poison Chakra no Jutsu," she replied. She looked skyward to judge the time. "He'll be dead in an hour."

* * *

"Okay! Onto match two, my passionate youths!" Rock Lee said as he finished declaring the winner of his group's previous match. Naruto, proctor of group zero-zero-one, cringed from ten feet away as he heard Lee rattle off a Gai phrase; certainly, he figured, Lee's mentor left a rather unfortunate effect on him. "We are group zero-one-two! We must be vibrant with our matches and prove superior to all the other underclass groups! Uchiha Nuuto & Yamanaka Kohtu! Be passionate with your combat against each other!"

_Lee,_ Naruto telepathically spoke to Rock Lee. _C'mon man, you're not a Xerox of Gai regardless of how much like him you look. Cut the act; it won't make you better than he was to act as weird._ He'd wanted to use a different adjective than weird, but didn't want to offend him terribly more than he had to. Naruto, from his position at the front of his group, saw Nuuto take up his stance against his opponent, the son of Ino. He'd given personal training lessons to Nuuto, and had seen Kohtu in combat against other genin, and he knew that the fight between them would be a worthy match.

Lee shouted for the fight to begin, and as such it did, both genin throwing themselves towards each other with all the speed and skill they had. Kohtu skillfully ducked beneath a furious sideways swipe by Sasuke's young son, making sure to drive his elbow into Nuuto's chest on the uptake. Using his opposing elbow, he connected with Nuuto's face and then spun around to strike him in the chest with a backwards-facing spin kick. Nuuto flew backwards, but made sure to land on his hands and use the motion to propel himself up onto his feet. Unfortunately, the moment he was right side-up, Kohtu struck him violently in the chest with a powerful kick.This time, Sasuke's youngest son didn't have time to right himself, so he ended up sucking dirt when he landed face first. Using his skills acquired from his sensei, Naruto, he sensed his foe approaching him at a violently fast pace, so he disappeared in a poof of smoke, reappearing in time to catch his opponent Kohtu off guard with a rising knee to the back. Kohtu quickly made a series of hand signs, and a field of mist surrounded him. It was a technique taught to him by his mother for creating shields and weapons out of the mist in the air. He had used this against other kids his age, and had seen positive results; none of them could block it. With a grin on his face, he created a wall of water vapor, and used it to sail across the battle zone at a seemingly inhuman speed, manipulaing the shape of the wall to be a battering ram. What would happen next would require him to close his eyes, so he did, and leapt off the wall of water vapor, sending the mass forward at twice its speed with a kick. Landing on his feet, he smiled as he saw the mass crash into a huge tree. Right as he began to turn around, a rising knee collided with his chin.

"How'd you...?" he asked Nuuto, wondering how he'd escaped the path of the jutsu. However, he looked to his opponent, and saw the answer. Nuuto already had use of his sharingan.

"I hope you can do better," Nuuto egged.

Kohtu said nothing, merely disappearing in a puff of smoke, reappearing immediately next to his dark-haired opponent. No more jutsus, he thought to himself. He knew well enough that to perform anymore ninjutsu would be futile and seen through immediately; instead, he resorted to good old fashioned taijutsu. The moment after appearing, he drove his elbow violently in the direction of Nuuto's head, only to see it dodged easily. Nuuto, from his crouched position, forced his right leg upward into the abdomen of Ino's youngest son. The very next instant, he quickly rose upward and slammed a similar kick into the face of his foe, throwing him backwards and onto his back. A quick leap saw him land on Kohtu's chest, where he hastily pulled a pair of kunai blades, one in each hand, and held it in an X shape on his opponent's neck.

"Give up or I'll cut you from one side of your neck to the other!" he shouted.

For Lee, it was good enough. "Uchiha Nuuto wins by default!"

* * *

Tsunade sat back in her seat, absolutely baffled by the news delivered to her by Sasuke. She shook her head. "Dear god," she uttered. She'd experienced the horrors of Orochimaru before, but to think that he was back yet again to cause problems was another story. She swore that last time she crossed paths with him was the last, yet here he had shown up again. The good news was, that this time, he had been detained. She looked down from her seat above the action at her faithful soldier of Konoha. "Thanks for giving me the information about what went down. I would, however, like to hear Naruto's explanation like I've been promised, so if you could go round him up for me, I'd appreciate it."

Sasuke nodded, taking a mental note of her orders. "Yes ma'am," he agreed, and walked off. She stared at the first few cards in the deck delivered to her by the Uchiha, and could not believe how skilled the spies were at hiding useful information by making it vague. She wondered to herself about how Naruto was able to extract any sort of data from the cards at all. Then again, she realized, he did have the powers of the Kyuubi. He approached from the main examination area just a few moments after Sasuke had left.

"You wanted to see me?" he asked, although he knew already what she would ask him.

"Yes, Naruto," she began. "What I would like to know is, first, how you detained Orochimaru."

He cleared his throat. "Well, ma'am, I happened across his position in the forest outside Konoha just a short time earlier last week or so, and I created a detailed illusion that lured him into my trap, which I sprung this afternoon. You remember the 'raped girl in Kakashi's office' incident earlier?"

"Another thing, Naruto, tell me everything you know about these cards. What information can you tell me about the village of the storm?"

"I couldn't gather a terrible amount of knowledge about the new kage out of the spies I stole these cards from, but from what I know, there has been a change of power in Arashigakure; the new kage is far stronger than the last one. They killed the previous one on their quest to gain control of the village."

"How strong are we talking?"

"Well, ma'am, the last kage of Arashigakure was Uchiha Itachi."


	10. CHAPTER EIGHT

Toguro Sakura

by Moonraker One

Author's Note: Alas, the Chuunin exam concludes in this chapter. Sorry for the wait, I was busy. Also, this chapter will be the shortest of all. Don't worry, next chapter'll be far longer.

CHAPTER EIGHT – The Zaram clan of Youko

Ludo sat atop a small tree trunk as he tried his hardest to gather his breaths, each of which came with more labor than the previous one. His sister Luuda glared at the two demonic offspring of Zaram Kyuubi, the mighty king of all fox demons, and saw a sadistic grin appear on Naraabi's face for a mere moment. Luuda instinctively knew that they were serving Naruto, for he had within him their father's spirit and power, and she knew that the chances of leaving Konoha with the information they'd gathered were slim if they could not defeat Kyuubi's offspring. In fact, she knew her chances of defeating Zaram Naraabi were not high unless she utilized her full demonic potential, at the same time as keeping her human form intact. By pumping her demon power into her Fatal Sound Aura technique, she predicted that she had enough power to triumph over the youngest child of the mighty Zaram bloodline.

She gritted her teeth as Naruto's kage bunshin called for the next match to begin. "Zaram Naraabi versus Koji Luuda!" shouted Naruto's doppelganger.

_Remember,_ Tokuubi psychically informed her little brother. _Our goal is to ensure they do not leave Konoha alive. Use your utmost power or else you will not triumph._

_I understand_, he replied.

* * *

Tsunade simply could not believe what she had just heard. "You're...not lying to me...are you, Naruto?" she inquired. "Because it'll be a severe punishment if you are lying to me." Uchiha Itachi! How could any person in existence possibly defeat him, she wondered. She knew him to be even more powerful than Orochimaru, so in order to destroy him, you would practically have to be a demon.

He shook his head. "Itachi was the prior kage of Arashigakure. I have knowledge of none who would be strong enough." That was a lie, he knew of one possibility, but it was a stretch and he did not know if Sakura had survived the wilderness of those years ago. As he stood, being questioned by the kage of Konoha, the mightiest of all ninja villages, he hoped she did not consider the possibility he was hiding from her. He felt, in a way, guilty for not being able to let Sakura go, and to mobilize forces against her would be something he did not want to do unless she really was bent on attacking, which he doubted. He refused to believe that, if the young demoness really was the kage of Arashigakure, that she would be so evil as to attempt a complete annihilation of lots of innocent lives.

"So, you're not lying," Tsunade uttered. Damn; she'd really hoped that the previous kage of the storm village had been someone less powerful. "Do you believe they are planning military action?"

"They're training their chuunin and jounin for action, but I'm not sure. I can only hope they aren't attacking."

"In your opinion, Naruto, do you believe they are going to wage war against us?"

He looked to the ground; he knew more than anyone if they were preparing troops they were certainly planning on attacking sometime in the future, he just didn't know when. In the end, he decided that it would always be better to be safe than sorry. "Lady Hokage, I'm sure that it's somewhere on their 'things to do' list, so I'd make our troops ready just in case."

She shook her head. It seemed inevitable, she thought, that the village hidden in the storm should plan for attack. She knew they were beginning to grow weary of the other villages looking down upon them, and times were getting good for invasion of other villages, so she knew that it would come, she had just hoped it would come after her reign as Hokage had ended. "Fine. My last act as Hokage of Konoha is to order that our upper class ninja and jounin learn some of the forbidden arts reserved for military combat use. You may return to your group and finish your portion of proctoring the chuunin exam."

* * *

Naraabi let up some of the internal seals he had covering portions of his power. Predictably, his power skyrocketed, and caused his muscles to expand slightly. He could not utilize his true power, for that would require him to reveal that he was, in fact, a youko. Fortunately for him, the same rule applied to Luuda, his opponent. She had her own demonic power, and most of it materialized in the form of the Fatal Sound Aura jutsu. Far more advanced than any other sound jutsu, she could actually manipulate the wave pattern, frequency, and amplification of any sound wave traveling through the air. It was the primary form of her demon power. She drew back her fist and began forming hand signs in the few moments before the gong rang. Naraabi began to form signs of his own, and waited for the gong to ring.

The shrill sound of the gong echoed throughout a six-foot radius. Luuda used her sound modification jutsu to turn the gong's sound into a cylinder-shaped beam of destruction, but Naraabi instantly moved out of its way, appearing next to her a moment later. He threw his right elbow at her head, knowing full well that she'd duck beneath it and put herself, inadvertently, into just the right position fro a standing side kick. She got thrown sideways by its force but when he leapt and attempted a slash with his hand, she teleported away from it and behind him. Launching a kick to the left, she hoped to catch him below his chest, but he sent his right foot backwards into her chest. Attempting to follow up with a vicious backhand, he almost connected before she appeared in front of him and threw her knee upwards. It caught only air, however, as he disappeared in a flash and appeared in time to throw his left knee into her lower back, thrusting her to the ground. He extended his left foot and tried to stomp her, but she vanished and materialized in time to kick him in his shin, hurtling him head-first towards the ground. Unfortunately for him, he didn't make it that far as an uppercut sent him skyward. Not a few moments was he in the air before she propelled off the ground and extending her foot like a joust, blasted him in the gut and threw him into a tree. The smile on her face left when she saw him use the force of impacting against the tree to ricochet towards her, where he attempted a kick version of a right hook, only to miss and have to land on his feet several feet away from her.

She grinned as she wiped sweat from her brow. "Not bad for an opener," she fired off. "You're quite good at taijutsu."

He coughed and spit on the ground. "Haven't been resting for six hundred years," he quipped. "I've scarcely met a demoness as powerful as you to fight so equal to me at three-fourths power. Now hit me with all you've got."

"You asked for it."

A simple snap of her finger became a thunderclap's envy as she modified it into a wide sweeping blast of sound. From snap of her finger to the punch that propelled it towards him took only a brief moment. In fact, a blink of an eye would be a thousand times too slow to describe the time it took her to form it. Once it left her fist, it slammed into him with rocket speed, blasting him and about a hundred of Konoha's famous hundred foot tall trees sailing backwards at near the speed of sound. A good majority of the trees were shattered into toothpick-sized fragments, and her opponent managed to get cut (at least superficially) on at least three-fourths of his body. Her grin widened when he hit the ground about a thousand feet away, leaving a visible trench dug as he skidded across the dirt. He shifted a few moments and fell limp.

"Koji Luuda wins...huh?"

They all saw it at the same time. Naraabi practically bounced to a standing position, much to the amazement of his opponent. Putting his right hand in his pocket, he winked at her. "That was a hell of a shot. Now let's take it up a notch. I can fight you with one arm!" Countless fragments of trees were scattered around him. To blow away such a chunk of trees with a single shot, he knew, meant that she had shown nearly eighty percent of her power.

Luuda drew herself into an attacking stance. She was amazed; no one except Sakura had taken such a blow and lived. "You're a bit arrogant, aren't you?" With a single bound he was back in the assigned fighting area, and she did not hesitate to try and connect with a vicious kick to his head. Keeping his right hand in his pocket, he lifted his left hand and blocked the kick, just in time to nail her in the stomach with a roundhouse kick of his own. He tried to follow up with a powerful left hook, but she dodged it effectively and kneed him in the chin. He used the force of his head being pushed back by her knee attack to reverse it into a headbutt, and it sent her to the ground several feet away. It did not put her down and out, as she launched herself at him, nailing him in the chest. She drew her arm back and slammed it into his face. _Just a little more_, he thought to himself, as he took her blows to put her in a good position. After about seven very good hits on Naraabi, she clasped her left hand around his throat and drew back her right fist for a finishing punch.

"NOW DIE!" he screamed, yanking his right hand from his pocket. Placing it with no hesitation on her abdomen, he let loose every inch of his power, releasing a massive burst of ki through his palm. Luuda barely had time to scream before a white light that was brighter than the sun shot like a cannonball from his hand, vaporizing everything in its path. Nearly everyone shielded their eyes and waited for the light to die down.

Almost everyone in the forest stood agape at the act of destruction they'd just witnessed; it was a straight line, about three feet wide and about a mile long, of obliterated ground where once a lot of trees had stood. No one could believe what had happened, not the least of which was Tokuubi, who had never seen her little brother release such power in his human form. Suddenly, though, she looked around and noticed something amiss. _Wait a minute, brother,_ she said to Naraabi, _where's Ludo?

* * *

_

The green fields outside the forest separating Konoha from the rest of the area whoosed by at lightning speeds as one Koji Ludo dashed by them at top speed. He had fled Konoha while both children of Kyuubi were caught up in Naraabi performance against Luuda. He had felt the true power of the offspring of Kyuubi; his sister had to be dead. This could not, however, be a time for grief; he still had the mission to attend to. However, as the poisoned chakra worked its evil on his internal organs, he failed to notice that his vision was blurring. At least, at first he didn't notice it.

* * *

The two offspring of Kyuubi stood amazed that he could have slipped off in his weakened state. "Tokuubi!" Naraabi practically shouted in a whisper. "You were supposed to make sure!"

_Don't worry, she psychically told him. By the time he gets there, none of the vital information on Konoha he found out will be left in his mind. The chakra was never meant to kill him, Naraabi, I merely injected it into him to give the illusion he would die from it, while it really only erased his memory a little at a time.

* * *

_

Sakura's main chambers found the door banged upon twice and then thrust open. She looked with confusion at the weakened Koji Ludo standing at the entrance to her chamber. "Where's your sister!" she questioned with a shout. She already knew, though, due to her mind-reading capability. She saw that he'd been poisoned by evil chakra. Attempting to read further she found futile; she slammed her fist against her desk at this prospect.

"Lady Kage," Ludo uttered as he staggered into her office.

She read further into his mind, and managed to get only one image. She frowned angrily as she saw the image of the two offspring of Kyuubi. She'd fought both of them before. They were arrogant demons who unfortunately for anyone fighting them, had the power to back it up. "I see you've failed, Ludo," she told him. No longer able to stand, he fell to his knees.

"Lady Kage, we were caught in a conspiracy against our lives! Have mercy!"

The last thing Ludo saw was Sakura's muscle expansion from powering up to forty percent, and then her fist sailing towards his face.

She stood against the window, staring into the clouds covering the sun. Wiping Ludo's blood off on the curtain, she frowned and shook her head. "So now it begins, doesn't it, Naruto?"


	11. CHAPTER NINE

Toguro Sakura

By Moonraker One

A/N: In order to end reader anxiety, I've decided to cut this chapter into two parts so that I can get this up sooner. Sorry for the delay, I've just had a lot of stuff going on in my life.

CHAPTER NINE – Konoha's new lord Hokage (part one)

The hallways of Arashigakure's main building were abnormally cold this morning. None were colder than a particular expanse of hallway stretching between the main area where the Kage and several of her subordinates trained in a gymnasium-like open room, and her main office. Sakura brushed part of her long pink hair out of her face and sighed; even to this day she could not forget about the boy who'd tried to save her. Naruto had been the only one, out of every person she knew, who stood up for her. Maybe it was because he had the same problem as her, maybe it was the fact that as a demon he knew what it meant to be hated for what was in your blood. In any case, she passed a room and one of her subordinates approached her immediately.

"Lady Kage!" he shouted, attracting her attention from behind.

She turned and shook the sleepiness from her eyes by moving her head back and forth quickly. "What is it, Kouta?" she inquired, looking straight at her jounin servant.

He cleared his throat. "The training program has been effectively kicked into high gear, with most of our chuunin getting ready for full combat training. I doubt Konoha has anything that can touch us once we're ready!"

_Oh, I know at least ONE thing Konoha has that can touch us,_she thought. _He might not be able to touch _ME_, but certainly some of our forces will fall to him._ She knew Naruto had to have come into his demonic power by now. "Good job, Kouta," she uttered. "Make sure they get adequate training. We have a war to prepare for."

"Yes ma'am!" He quickly left to return to training.

* * *

An invisible wave of eagerness flooded the room that was decorated with images of Hokages past. All the previous rulers of Konoha were painted onto sections of the walls, and no less than thirty jounin—the village's finest—sat waiting for the word from Lady Hokage about what exactly would happen to decide her successor.

A hush went over the room before she spoke. She moved her head from right to left, examining the faces in her presence. Some of them, she'd known her whole life, while others she knew only a brief while. One of them would replace her as the leader of one of the mightiest villages on the continent. "My friends," she began, "Konohagakure's finest jounin, you have been called here to participate in a small test. This test will determine which of you will replace me. Are there any questions regarding why you're here?" She waited. A half a minute passed, and someone in the back coughed, but no one spoke. "Okay then. This test will require three parts. One of them will be a test of political knowledge; a good leader must be able to interact with other Kages. Any questions about the first test?" Again, she waited, with no one speaking out. "Next, you will be tested on your overall strategizing capability; can you lead a group of chuunin and genin into combat with the minimum possible amount of casualties? Can you defeat your enemies if they outnumber or overpower you? That is what is tested with the second test. Finally, in the third part, we will test your overall strength in a series of one-on-one fights. Does anybody have any questions? Because you cannot ask them later." Not a voice spoke out. "Then move on to the various rooms to which you have been assigned, so that you may take the various sections of this test. The final decision on who will lead the village will be decided by myself, upon reviewing the data for each candidate." With a rap of her fist on her desk, and a nod, the crowd scattered like flies.

Naruto filed into one of the dozens of private rooms which had been sectioned off for each individual person to be alone with only the proctors of the test watching on from inside. He'd been placed into a room with a desk and two proctors—Iruka and Ibiki—listening to his answers and recording them. "Uzumaki Naruto," the scarred Ibiki began, "you will take the part one of the test with myself providing questions and Iruka recording your answers. This room is sound-proof and has been scanned for spy devices of any sort as well as being protected from illusion. Do you understand before we go on?" Predictably, the blonde shinobi nodded. "Okay, then. Let us begin this test." He unfolded one sheet of paper and presented it before Naruto. "This is your first Kage to interact with; on the sheet is what your village knows about him. The subject at hand is war; he wants this section of territory," he circled with his finger a large portion of Konohagakure's territory outside the main village, "or else he will invade with a force of seventy-thousand. What would you do, Naruto?"

Naruto thought it over a few minutes. The territory that had been indicated was well-known for having an absolutely enormous supply of natural resources, and to simply give it up would be lunacy. It would severely hinder the economy of the Hidden in the Leaf village if surrendered, and might actually cause a recession. On the other hand, the kage indicated was the leader of an exceptionally powerful village of shinobi, and an invading force of seventy thousand would do a huge amount of damage to the village. So, he could not adequately think of a good solution to Ibiki's question.

"You must decide now," Iruka reminded. "Your deliberation time has ended."

Naruto shook his head. "Give it to him," he replied. "Human lives are more important than materials."

Iruka wrote the answer down on the paper, and motioned for Ibiki to provide the second question.

"The second subject is trade," he continued, taking up the first sheet and placing down a second. "This is the Kage of the Village Hidden in the Mist. He is known for being ruthless about his trade routes. Any who sign treaties with him tend to lose lives to 'accidents' along the trade routes. You are to come up with an good, effective way of preventing casualties along these routes."

If he could do so, he was smiling inside; he knew something regarding the Kage of Hidden Mist village that only a few knew; the Mizukage hated war. He absolutely did not want to risk lives of his men. So, Naruto knew a way that would effectively prevent war altogether. "Send no less than three upper-level jounin for each civilian trader going along the trade routes; Konoha has more than enough jounin for this, and, Mizukage would not dare attack and risk war." This was one of the few questions that had a correct answer; a vast majority of them were up to interpretation.

Iruka cleared his throat and looked up to the ceiling for a few moments, silently hoping to whatever God reigned from heaven that his former student would do well, as he held Naruto in higher regard than almost any of his other former pupils. Even so, he knew he had to be impartial, and wrote the answer down carefully and with good judgment. With a nod of his head, his fellow proctor glanced at the paper in front of him, and presented his young test taker with a new set of information. "The third subject regards treaty agreements. Here is your information regarding the Kage at hand." Naruto quickly glanced over the sheet placed in front of him, and gathered the necessary data from the sheet to make an informed decision. "A brutal war has just been fought between Konoha and this village. Many lives have been lost on both sides; as such, a treaty is desperately sought. What do you do?"

Naruto thought for a second. "Did we approach them for a treaty or did they approach us for one?"

Ibiki looked left and right a moment; he'd not been prepared for a question like that. "I...um...Let us consider for a moment that they approached us first. What is the course of action?"

Naruto did, in response, what he always had done best: wing it. "If they approached us first," he explained, "that means that we can be somewhat liberal with them as they would not have approached us first if they had enough troops to continue fighting. This is, of course, the course of action assuming that the Kage is of able body and mind. For it is somewhat non-beneficial to attempt at a treaty as the attacking party to seek a treaty before having lost a decent amount of forces."

The scarred proctor nodded, edging his test taker to continue; he was not expecting such a detailed answer from such a simple-minded individual. "Yes, and...?"

"_And_..." Naruto continued, adding effect with his voice. "We must try to make the treaty talks go as quickly as possible because with speed an enemy can be forced—in a way—to bow to our wishes without knowing it if they are given the impression that the time for talks is limited."

Iruka cleared his throat; he was impressed. "Well," he beat his fellow test proctor to the punch with his interruption. "What if we approached them first?"

"In that case, we would have to be as conservative as possible while still ensuring to avoid being pressured into making a bad decision."

Both proctors shared a glance right before Iruka recorded his former student's final response. "That will be all for part one of the test, Naruto. You may go now, and wait in the main hall for part two to begin shortly."

Naruto let a sigh as he waited in the hall, leaning against the wall to relieve pressure on his back. _Thank God that's over with,_ he thought to himself. Seldom had he taken such an easy part one of any sort of test, and he hoped that the other two sections would be as simple and true to what he already knew. However, he also knew that there was a good possibility that he would be let down in the expectation that he already had all the necessary knowledge to coast through the later two parts of the exam, due to his past history with taking tests. Nevertheless, he pushed his doubts aside and tried his best to picture what was in his way next. If he knew Lady Hokage well enough, she would have him tested on three separate battle scenarios: firstly, he would be presented with a scene where the battle was nearly lost, so that he could demonstrate his ability to make a comeback from virtually nothing; second of all, his ability to properly conclude a battle when a near victory is in sight. Finally, he knew, he would be tested on when to know what is the correct situation to run from a battle and regroup, as such was a needed bit of data on any battlefield.

Not far from his position, he caught sight of Neji; the eternally jealous cousin of his wife Hinata. Although he referred to her as his sister, because of his vow to protect her from those who would wish her harm, he was still her cousin and thus, Hyuuga Neji was the permanent enemy of her husband, who represented in his mind all that was evil. _You will not defeat me, Uzumaki Naruto,_ Neji thought to himself as he headed for the break room to grab a snack. Thinking of his wife's jealous cousin, he took his liquor flask from his pocket and took a long, refreshing drink, emptying half the contents.

_I never did understand his problem, Naruto thought to himself, never fully understanding the reasons behind Neji's eternal hatred of him, even when the answers were in front of him. While he was waiting, he caught sight of Uchiha Sasuke, his eternal rival and best friend, who had just exited the room he was taking the test in. From the look on his face, and the positive energy about his aura, the blonde shinobi estimated that the test had gone well for him. He always knew that the only serious challenge that he would ever get from Konoha would come from Sasuke, and how the history between them had been, was always a very intrguing story. At first, they had been bitter enemies, what with Sasuke's eternal lust for nothing except power, and Naruto's desire to prove everyone wrong, they clashed on multiple occasions. Up until about five months after the chuunin exams, the lone Uchiha always had outclassed Naruto in every aspect of ninjutsu and genjutsu, with taijutsu being the only thing the would-be Hokage was equal to his rival in. However, with getting his training from an unknown source, the power gained from the training was absolutely startling. No type of training taught by men warranted the power as well as skill increase that the blonde shinobi displayed after a short time; was he getting his training secretly from Kyuubi? All Sasuke knew was if the ANBU caught Naruto learning from the fox demon, they'd have him executed._

"Uzumaki Naruto!" A loud voice called out from the fourth door down the hall. "You are to take part two now!" The brightly lit hallways of the Hokage's building seemed to be difficult to endure for Naruto, for the fox demon's unbelievably heightened senses made it especially bright; Naruto saw, heard and smelled everything with fifty times the acuteness of any other normal person. He pushed it aside and entered the room, and saw in front of him the predictable full map of the countryside surrounding Konoha (which took up the full expanse of a table large enough for two people to tango upon and not run out of room), and the figures that represented shinobi for both sides.

"This," Anko explained, as proctor of part two, "is part two of the test. Your instructions are as follows: you are to come up with the best way of winning the battle in front of you. Each toy soldier represents fifty shinobi. The shortest route to winning the battle is what you are to aim for, with the fewest number of casualties. Kakashi here will provide your needed materials to come up with the answer, and I will return in about thirty minutes to collect your final answer and take it to Lady Hokage. Cheating results in disqualification; any questions?" Naruto shook his head. "Good; then I shall return later." She left the examination room to grab a quick bite to eat in the break room, because she hadn't had a single meal thus far and wanted to make sure she had enough in her system to go on for the rest of the test. _Christ,_ she thought to herself as she walked down the expanse of the hallway. _So many damn applicants, and most of them'll be gone by the third exam. Spare me this never-ending trial._

Plopping down on the couch in the waiting room, she reached in her bag and pulled out her usual lunch of a couple rolls covered in sweet bean paste and the small thermos of chamomile tea. Each of the rolls went down with a few bites each, and got followed up by a sip of tea. She recalled being present at the jounin examinations, and noticed that a great deal more chuunin made it to jounin during Naruto's testing than had ever been before or since. She also knew that very few shinobi had displayed the level of betterment of self than the blonde ninja in question; somehow, in a few years' time after the exam, he managed to become one of the five top-ranked jounin in the entire village. She wished she knew his secret. She considered the Kyuubi, but shook it off; why would he train under the creature that destroyed his father? Such questions were meant for later; she put down her thermos after finishing her lunch and fell asleep on the couch.


	12. CHAPTER TEN

Toguro Sakura

by Moonraker One

A/N: My life's been sooooo hectic lately, I'm lucky I got this one up at all! Thanx for reading

CHAPTER TEN - Konoha's New Lord Hokage (conclusion)

BRIINNG!

Anko almost leapt from her seat on the couch after hearing her personal watch alarm go off, signaling that it was high time for her to get back to the second part of the test. Feverishly, she shook her head left and right to clear away the sleepiness that she'd accumulated from her late night party the previous evening. She made a mental note of all the applicants for the position of lord or lady Hokage, and it amazed her the level of improvement shown by some of them since she first came in contact with them. Naruto, quite possibly the most intriguing of all, had shown a level of betterment that no other shinobi had displayed in more than a hundred years, according to records. Regardless, she had seen his talent for surprising everyone in the past and thus knew he would be a contender that few would be able to step into the ring with. He may not have been the brightest crayon in the box, but by God, if he said something, he did it. _Holy crap!_ she thought. _It's been his time already!_

Tearing down the hall, she yanked the door open and stared at the models on the table; all three scenarios had been answered. Being one of the highest jounin in the village, she hastily examined his answer, making sure that the field had been fully utilized, all the details and obstacles taken into account, and the answer given to the fullest possible extent. Something about the board didn't seem right, so she re-analyzed it several times, even consulted the manual. Kakashi's bewilderment told her something had to be incorrect, so she was prepared to give him low points for being wrong, and then it hit her like a ton of bricks.

His answers, were _actually better_ than the ones set forth in the manual by Lady Hokage!

She stared with wide eyes at his solution, cleared her throat, and wrote down "Hooollllyy SHIT" as his test score.

"Is everything ok?" Naruto inquired, grinning as he was sure of himself and his conclusion. "Can I go now?"

"Umm...ahem...yeah...go..." she said, hesitatingly. "It's obvious that you're...done with part two."

Naruto cleared his throat and stood up, politely pushing in his chair and saying his goodbyes to Anko and Kakashi, closing the door behind him as he left the room. Outside, he began to dance in a celebratory fashion as high tempo music played in his head. He expected that he would do good, because he was confident in his training, but he never thought the questions would be so rekmarkably easy since he took Kakashi's advice after all these years and finally studied war tactics. Thinking about his training brought back some memories of the past; none of his allies would accept his methods of training. Kyuubi was his way of gaining all the power that he never thought he would have. Sure, the nine-tailed fox demon was the enemy of many of the villagers of Konoha, but he had ways of getting through to the demon. Kind of an alliance was formed, even if most would consider it to be unholy: he would grant Kyuubi's dying wish in exchange for being part of the harshest training programs in the underworld.

From down the hall, Sasuke had been staring at the floor pondering his progress thus far, and noticed Naruto smiling. "Naruto!" he increased his pace as he shouted for his friend and ally in arms. His secondary concern to his own performance was his best friend's. "How'd you do?"

The answer should have been semi-obvious from the large grin on the face of Uzumaki Naruto, but in the remote case that it wasn't, he replied, "Oh, I think I did better than most."

Sasuke smiled initially, bacause it was good news that his friend passed, but the look on his face gave away the fact that he had another concern on his mind. "Naruto," he stammered, gathering his words. He really didn't want to have to fight against his friend, because he knew that he was really no match for him. Unfortunately, he really didn't want to admit the truth again. His frown turned to a smile, because he didn't want to spoil the mood.

"Is something wrong?"

Shaking his head, he lied, "I'm doing fine; don't worry about me." He walked away, headed for the main section of the complex, preparing himself as good as he could for the final part of the exam. Naruto looked confused, but somehow he unmistakably knew the reason for his friend's confusion.

Gai approached Naruto from the room he was examining students. "Uzumaki Naruto!" after greeting his fellow jounin, he extended his hand in congratulations. "You are one of the five remaining jounin left for the position of Hokage! You are indeed one of the best!"

"Well, I've been training," he admitted, feeling flattered.

"You're to meet in the main gym area for the final contest."

Entering the main area of the gymnasium added onto the building a few years ago, Naruto saw that, among the dozens of jounin proctoring the exam, the five remaining members of the original thirty-something group of applicants were all within his age group. Furthermore, all of them were from either his year of graduating the jounin exam, or the year prior. Many of the older jounin, such as Kakashi, were either too old to be a long leader or eliminated during the strategy tests. It surprised Naruto that very few of the older ones had even tried out. Up in the stands, was his old master Kakashi and his wife Anko, and both had declined to participate as an applicant. It struck him as bizarre; he believed the aging master would make a very good Lord Hokage, but then again, no one was standing in his way of reaching the position.

"Welcome, young jounin of Konohagakure village!" Tsunade announced. "Five of you have made it to the final part of the test. By the end of this next few fights, there will be a new Hokage. The matches will have a five minute time limit, and the only win is by K.O. or by the judges. Match one is Yamanaka Ino against Hyuuga Neji. BEGIN!"

The very instant that the match began, Neji whirled his body around for a roundhouse kick, then instead of landing the kick brought it downward in an axe motion. Ino did a splitz and blocked the kick by forming a X with her arms, stopping Neji's attack in the center and thrusting upward to send him sailing. Neji used the upward momentum to change his trajectory into a backflip to land on his feet, but the instant before he landed safely on his feet, Ino propelled herself towards him, extending her right foot outward like a joust. A downward thrust by the Hyuuga boy's right forearm knocked the flying kick off pattern, forcing Ino to realign herself and land on her feet, opening her for a reverse roundhouse to the chest, which she blocked with her left elbow. He attempted the same thing with his other leg, only for her right forearm to stop it mid-flight and push it aside. She used the moment's recovery time after stopping his attack to drive her elbow into his gut, throwing his face forward. Unfortunately for him, his forehead came into the path of a powerful side kick with her left foot that threw him backwards. After that, he made the mistake of landing on his hands to push himself upwards to land on his feet, because while he was right-side up, she launched herself via a powerful double foot thrust directly at him. A second after seeing her jump, her left knee slammed into his face, pushing his torso back for her to crash him into the ground with a downward elbow strike. A jump put them exactly four feet apart.

"Damn, you're good," he admitted. He knew he couldn't seem to predict her strategy because of her huge amount of developed skill in taijutsu. If he brought out the big guns-basically, his trademark jutsus-she'd be done for.

"Only because I tried," she joked. She knew she'd been training hard. She also knew that she landed a majority of her attack because he didn't calculate her attacks properly. "But I can't keep up with you much longer."

Lady Hokage took notice. "Is this an admission of defeat?"

Ino nodded, and left the ring. Tsunade, seated above the audience, crossed Ino's name off of the list of competitors, and drew up the names for the next match. "Match two," she shouted loud enough for everyone to hear, "is between Uchiha Sasuke," the crowd went silent, despite the fact that they knew who would be involved, "and Rock Lee." Naruto felt a bit disenfranchised, as he had been hoping he would be the one to fight Sasuke in the opening round. Regardless, he knew that regardless of the outcome, he'd have to perform to his best. It was just that his best performance would come from someone who's fighting style he knew inside and out, and Lee's was somewhat unpredictable. "BEGIN!"

Sasuke took up his stance at once; he knew he'd never stand a chance if he didn't put himself on guard immediately. Lee had to be, without a doubt, one of the fastest shinobi that Konohagakure had to offer. More than nine hundred missions he'd gone on since becoming a jounin, and he'd seldom come home with a wound that a band-aid and a little bit of hydrogen peroxide couldn't take care of. Sasuke had been on just as many missions, but relied more on stealth than speed. His style prepared him little for this fight.

The first strike of the battle came from Lee, as he ducked beneath a kung-fu type open hand punch and, resting his body's weight on his hands, drove his right foot directly upward into his opponent's chest. Not the moment later, the thick eyebrowed fighter flipped himself over onto his feet, and used the momentum of the position shift to throw his left foot into Sasuke's gut, forcing him backward into position for a roundhouse kick. The roundhouse did not connect, as Sasuke had enough of a warning to pull himself below it and in the correct stance in front of his foe so that he could initiate a flurry of attacks via a two-part attack. The first part was an elbow to the chest of Lee, and the second wsa the opposing arm's elbow to the face. A well-placed kick to the chest and a rapid-fire storm of punches and kicks pummeled Lee until he was weary a second long enough for Sasuke to blast a double-fist strike directly to the chest. Lee hit the ground seven feet away from Sasuke, and literally bounced off the ground to flip over and land on his feet.

_Christ, he is good,_ Lee thought as he analyzed his opponent's style from the blows he took. He knew the best thing he could do, based on the moves he'd already taken, was to implement his quickness and make use of Sasuke's power, which was greater than Lee's, and turn it against him.

_I need to be careful,_ Sasuke knew. _If I'm not careful, he'll use my strength against me!_ He was no idiot; he knew his greater physical strength would bring him down if he couldn't keep up with his faster opponent. The Uchiha prodigy's greater strength came from the fact that his style utilized the power more in the quick strike than Lee's, and it would be extremely useful against anyone with lesser speed.

Sasuke decided to get a proper analysis of Lee's strategy by assuming a defensive role in the second part of the battle, letting his opponent strike at him and he would defend until he saw an open point. His first chance came from a spinning kick aimed at his head, which he carefully dodged by jerking his head backwards. Lee lunged forward quickly, throwing his elbow out like the point of a joust, hoping to catch Sasuke off guard, but caught only air as a quick dodge to the left allowed the thick eyebrowed warrior to sail aside. Using his left leg as a pivot point allowed for Lee to make use of his powerful standing side kick, that almost landed had his opponent not been completely on guard and ready to bend concavely to avoid it by a hair. Immediately afterward, an elbow rocketed Sasuke's way, and he had a very short microsecond to convexly tilt for it to sail just above his head. His open opportunity came the instant Lee retracted his right arm from the elbow strike; Sasuke tore a slight opportunity wide open with a violent headbutt.

Almost every one of the older jounin knew the battle was over and Lee just didn't know it yet; Sasuke did not wait for his foe to recover from the head strike. His close proximity torrent of punches, kicks and other strikes allowed him to utilize his power-loaded quick attacks to their fullest extent. The shinobi with the chili bowl haircut looked like a storm-tossed sail in a hurricane under the sheer unrelenting fury of the Uchiha's attacks. After landing a direct punch to Lee's face, Sasuke enclosed the sharp end of a steel kunai inside his clenched fist for extra punch power, then drove his right hand into Lee's chest with all the power he could possibly muster. Being used to pain, Sasuke cringed as he felt the sharp kunai's blade dig into his flesh, but the might of the attack, which had sent Lee flying across the room like a bounced rock, was more than worth it.

"Rock Lee is unconsicous!" Tsunade announced. "Uchiha Sasuke wins!"

Naruto grinned; he hoped his friend would win, he just didn't know because the two were so close. Sasuke approached his best friend. "Tell me something, Naruto," he inquired. "How did I win?" Anyone else would not have understood the nature of the inquiry, but being such an expert on strategy, the question made perfect sense to him.

He thought a minute and responded, "You took him by surprise, and analyzed his plan perfectly. I'm surprised." He had seldom seen such fury and skill from his comrade in arms; it was a shock to Naruto just how well Sasuke had adapted to a faster opponent who had the same amount of experience."

Sasuke's grin matched that of his friend and ally in arms. "Yeah, I thought so. But I still can't beat you, right?"

Naruto shook his head. "Yup. Here's a little gift, though." With that said he took the bleeding hand of Sasuke, and with a mild release of his chakra, healed the wound.

All three remaining applicants turned to their Lady Hokage for advice; Tsunade herself had never imagined there'd be three remaining jounin. She wanted the test to be over with the next fight, thus she knew there'd be only one option left.

"The final matchup of this exam will be a three way fight between Hyuuga Neji, Uchiha Sasuke, and Uzumaki Naruto!" The audience gasped at the prospect; never before had there been such a matchup between shinobi. Nevertheless, the three ninja in question approached the ring.

Naruto looked at Neji, and then at Sasuke, and he knew that the most likely occurence would be that both of his opponents would double team on him. He had fought powerful opponents, and he had even fought multiple opponents at the same time, but to face two powerhouse upper-level shinobi such as his two opponents currently in the ring with him, was a prospect that excited him like few battles had. They all stood at a triangle's vector points in the ring, and waited for the signal.

"BEGIN!"

Just as he had expected, the fight kicked off with both Neji and Sasuke charging him at once. Throwing off his weighted clothing, he had just a brief instant to analyze both fighters' attack styles and prepare his defensive stance. A furious left hook from Neji came in perfect synchronization with one of Sasuke's deadly sideways kicks, and he had to utilize an X-shaped defense with both forearms to stop both at the same time. After that, it was a matter of dodging attack after attack with all the speed he could gather. He had no problem with predicting attacks from his friend, as he had fought with him on more occasions than he could imagine. Neji, however, posed a problem because he had such a spastic fight style that it almost seemed random to an untrained eye. Naruto knew if he hadn't had the Kyuubi's experience with his own, he'd have more trouble than he could handle. He saw the shortest of opportunities ever when he saw Neji preparing his chakra for a powerful jutsu, and landed a straight kick to the gut, forcing his opponent backwards. A joust of an elbow strike to the chin of Sasuke threw the dark-haired Uchiha backwards, and it gave Naruto the chance he needed to alternate between one foe and the other with powerful attacks.

Neji shot a quick glance at Sasuke; they knew they had one shot, and it involved a distraction followed by a very powerful last ditch effort in the form of a jutsu. Neji gathered an offensive stance together and leapt at Naruto, hoping to catch him off guard and distract him long enough for Sasuke to launch a powerful fireball jutsu at him to knock him out of the match. Unfortunately for the plan, Naruto had such skill at reading his opponents' moves, he saw the strategem a mile away.

From his position in the audience, Kakashi smiled at his brightest former student's progression since the last exam. _Damn,_ he thought as he saw Naruto expertly parry one mighty strike after another without flinching a moment. _I never expected THIS._ Surely, he believed, the next Hokage would probably be the one who's wanted it for so long.

Sweat rolled down Sasuke's face as he made hand signs in rapid sucession; he knew that Neji would buy him all the time he could get, but he didn't know if his fireball would have the needed fury to knock out one of the most powerful allies he had.

Naruto began to grow aggravated as Neji matched him blow for blow. He had never expected someone usually so predictable to have such skill when sober. Sure, Neji was _tough_, but how few days off the bottle allow his mind to clear up enough to go toe to toe with one of Hidden Leaf Village's finest?

An opening finally revealed itself when Neji slipped up and missed an otherwise certain kick. Sensing his chance, Naruto tripped him up with a sweep kick and sent him across the ring with a forceful standing side kick to the chest. He barely had time to turn around as the dark haired Uchiha finished the necessary hand signs.

Sasuke marked his target with his chakra, and clenched his teeth. "FIREBALL NO JUTSU!"

Naruto's gut reaction screamed for him to move out of the way; his experience, however, told him to stand his ground and counter the attack. The heat in the room skyrocketed as Naruto forced out his chakra to his palms as fast as he could as his opponent's fireball stormed towards him at hundreds of miles per hour.

"NOW!" Naruto screamed, throwing both palms outward and thrusting his chakra out of him like a tropical storm, matching the fireball a little at a time. The two forces of power suddenly exploded as they cancelled each other out. Naruto could see clearly due to his demonic senses, but Sasuke threw up both hands to shield his eyes from the light.

BANG.

The sound of a final strike echoed through the building as Naruto charged straight through the blinding light of the fireball's explosion and landed an unbelievably vicious kick to the chest. The match was over as Sasuke crashed into the back wall like a cannon shot, leaving a visible series of cracks in the wall. A breathless audience took in a gasp of air as both opponents of Naruto fell to the ground, barely conscious from the attack.

Tsunade raised a clenched fist. "It is decided!" To this statement the entire audience, as well as the proctors who watched over the exam, all began to cheer and clap. Naruto could scarcely believe he had come this far, and that for years of training he'd stood in similar rings hoping his talents would be noticed. "Well then, I have come to the conclusion of who it is that shall replace me!" The audience stood, barely able to take in the whole scene as Lady Hokage prepared to name the future Lord Hokage.

"It shall be...Uchiha Sasuke!"

Naruto as well as his dark haired friend turned to Tsunade, along with the rest of a confused audience, and the one word everyone said in unison vibrated through the building. "_WHAT_!"


	13. CHAPTER ELEVEN

Toguro Sakura

By Moonraker One

A/N: The reason that this chapter is so unbearably short is that it is a turning point. What I mean by that is that regardless of what you are expecting, regardless of what may be predicable about the plot, I guarantee that after this point, you will see a drastic change in the direction of the story, and I'm not giving away where it's going. All I can say is that I guarantee you will be surprised in the end.

CHAPTER ELEVEN – A Leader's Rationale

Neither Naruto nor Sasuke could possibly comprehend the purpose behind Tsunade's decision of who the new Lord Hokage would be. Each had their own ideas and thoughts about the subject matter but neither could see precisely her reasoning. From her position above the rest of the crowd, she looked down upon the rest of the audience and the competitors and knew that she would soon have to make her rationale known to everyone else. For her it had been quite a hard decision to make, because she had to take many different things into account. A lot of those things had to do with the potential of war.

"Uzumaki Naruto!" Tsunade announced. "Could you and Uchiha Sasuke please report to my private chambers?"

Naruto shook his head. How could he be denied, when he knew that he had very easily made some of the best possible answers and results to every exam given to him? _You'd better have a good reason, Tsunade,_ he thought. Kyuubi, buried deep within his soul, had his own unique theory that Naruto considered.

_You know, Naruto,_ the demon fox said, _I think that as long as there's an alternative, you'll be turned down._

Sasuke glanced at his best friend and partner in combat, and wondered too how he could be chosen over such a much better candidate to lead Konohagakure village. After all, he knew that in combat, even a two on one situation could not guarantee him a victory over Naruto. He also predicted that his ally's academic test scores were higher than his were as well. Was it really the grudge over the presence of the fox demon? That issue had been dead for over twenty years.

The large doors of the private chamber of the Hokage creaked as they slid open. Sitting behind her desk, she had in her hands two separate file folders. One of them contained the exam information on both candidates in her office, and the other was labeled "eyes only." She offered a seat to each of her two best students. In her mind, several thousand pieces of information, all relevant to the current matters, flowed by each other like water. "Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke," she began, taking notice of each jounin. "You two represent the absolute best we could ever hope to come out of our complex system of training programs. Yet, between the two of you, there is an immense gap of skill." Sasuke cast a glance at Naruto, for he knew whom she was talking about immediately. "Naruto, it absolutely amazes me, because when you first entered the chunin rank, you were quite inexperienced. Now, you've flowered into the most powerful, most skilled shinobi we've seen in a long time.

"Neither of you understand why I made the decision I made." She took a drink of water. "I understand this perfectly, as it would seem quite obvious that I would choose the more skilled of the two of you for the position, but due to certain extenuating circumstances that are beyond my control, I have to make the decision I made. Uchiha Sasuke will be the Lord Hokage, yes, but Naruto, I'm not entirely forgetting you. The reason that I couldn't give you the position is because there is war approaching." She slid the eyes-only packet forward for both jounin to look at. "Do you remember Toguro Sakura? I have new data that she is the one who assumed command of Arashigakure village." Sasuke, with a wide-eyed look on his face, switched his glance quickly between Naruto and Tsunade. She nodded her head mournfully. "Almost all of our spies in the village have been killed. The one that was able to escape told us all he could. Massive troop movements have occurred between Arashi and another village with which Sakura was able to secure a treaty of alliance. We estimate their force at thirty thousand. We may outnumber them in soldiers, but they have some of the deadliest techniques known to man. I'm gonna need a mind as skilled at combat as Naruto to train our soldiers."

It was almost too much for the young jounin's to take in at once. Sasuke did not know immediately what the proper reaction to such information was, and as such he could do little more than sit and ponder what the consequences were of the obvious choices of action. Naruto had known for quite a while through various sources that were unique to him due to the powerful bargaining chip that was Kyuubi, that Sakura had been planning war. What he didn't know was exactly when she was planning to invade or how the procedure would go, but he did know that he would find out far faster than any spy connected to Konohagakure. "Lady Hokage," Sasuke inquired, hesitating to ponder the correct words to say, "what precisely shall be Naruto's purpose as instructor to the primary attack fleet of Konoha? And furthermore, what shall be our course of action?"

Tsunade found it difficult to answer. "In order to defeat Arashi, we will have to pull out all the stops," she explained. "They teach _ordinary_ ninja school students, techniques that should never be taught to any human being. Their genin learn how to murder a hundred soldiers at once merely by focusing their energies, often at the cost of their own lives, for example. They learn how to use their own blood as guided shrapnel to take out large groups of enemies. We have to have _some kind_ of way of fighting back such barbaric techniques. Thus, Naruto shall be teaching our chunin and jounin how to utilize techniques that are used commonly among Kyuubi's demon kind."

Naruto almost felt he _had_ to protest. "Lady Hokage!" he shouted. Quickly he lowered his tone, realizing his place. "The secret techniques known by Kyuubi are no less barbaric than the ones taught by Arashi's jounin! For example, the very _image _of Kyuubi…the sound of his _voice_ even, would probably cause significant enemy casualties on the battlefield."

Tsunade was confused. "I thought you and the Kyuubi were the same being!"

"We _are_," Naruto corrected, "and that is part of the problem. I _am_ a fox demon myself, and therefore, if I utilize more than twenty percent of my latent power, my demonic side would become visible. At my full power," it seemed almost unbearable to think of such a thing, "anyone who got within fifty feet of me who didn't have demonic blood would possibly be instantly incinerated. My point is that there are techniques I know that should never be used under any circumstances."

Tsunade, rather than be disheartened to the idea of Naruto's true powers, found herself fascinated by the prospect. "Go on," she insisted.

"For _example_, I can move at such a speed as to move without passage of time." Sasuke found himself horrified by what he was hearing come out of his best friend's mouth. "I could possibly decimate up to thirty percent of their attacking force _alone_, without anyone's help. But it's not their army I'm worried about."

"Who?" Sasuke asked. It struck him as a stupid question, as he already knew who.

"Sakura," Naruto predictably answered. "I'm an animal-type demon, making me vastly superior to the vast majority of demons. She, however, is a human-modification demon, whose central power circles around being able to manipulate one aspect of the human design, in her case, her muscle mass. At full muscular capacity, she could exert enough ki to be stronger than an animal-type."

Tsunade did not like the way the discussion was going. "What are you saying?"

"What I'm saying, is that she," he hated to admit the truth; not out of pride, but because of what it would mean. "She may very well be more powerful than I am."


	14. CHAPTER TWELVE

Toguro Sakura

By Moonraker One

A/N: This chapter takes place about three months after the end of the test to find the new Lord Hokage. Words enclosed in single quotes are spoken in fox demon language.

CHAPTER TWELVE – One Spark…

The inner chamber of the secret underground facility of the hidden leaf village had to be the single largest training facility on the entire continent. Within the large open area at the innermost part of the facility, a thousand shinobi had been gathered out of the tens of thousands of available warriors of the village. These thousand represented the best of the jounin and chuunin, with the majority of the defending force stationed at the various corners of the village. At the far end of the chamber, stood a stage on which a podium rested and one very proud jounin stood looking over the crowd.

"You have learned some of the deadliest techniques known to exist," Naruto commented, taking pride in the speed of his students' learning capacities. "You are gathered today because a threat exists that could mean the end of our beloved village. I am pleased to welcome Lord Hokage to provide the background information." He stepped aside and joined the bulk of the people in clapping.

Sasuke took the stage. "My fellow shinobi," he spoke, taking notice of the confusion amidst the group. "A former ninja of Konoha, exiled years ago, by the name of Toguro Sakura, has taken control of the village of Arashigakure. She has obtained an alliance with a fellow village, and the united force of the two villages has decided that they will attack us." He cleared his throat. "I expect that you will meet tremendous adversity and be on the receiving end of one of the deadliest techniques of all time; this is why Naruto was chosen to instruct you in the acquiring of jutsus, for his…" he paused a minute, "…unique position amongst us. He is an excellent shinobi, and in fact, I promise that once this war is over, I will hand my seat of Hokage over to him. Right now, though, I have been chosen for my ability to rule over this village while it is at war." Glancing quickly over the large assemblage of talent, he took notice of a few seasoned veterans, some highly talented new chuunins and jounins, and a lot of young men and women who might not return to their lives. Nevertheless, it was his job to give them the proper leadership they needed. "Tomorrow we move out to meet the enemy in combat. We may not be the most powerful shinobi in the world, but by god, _we are the best_!" A scream of unity preceded a thousand fists raised in hope of victory.

Sasuke took Naruto aside from the group which filed out through a series of doors to prepare for final preparations. "Naruto," he explained, "I want you to go separately and try to track down Sakura and Orochimaru."

"Waitaminute," Naruto gasped, "Orochimaru_ escaped_? I thought the ANBU set to guard him was the best we had!"

Sasuke shook his head, obviously upset. "Yes, I know. They _were_," he admitted. "He did not escape. He was _let out_."

"You mean…!"

Sasuke nodded mournfully. "We have a traitor at hand." He knew what his statement had meant for the village. It meant that he had to tread lightly, as he could think of several shinobi who would potentially want to be students of the much-traveled Orochimaru. Since his best friend was the strongest ninja he'd ever seen—possibly the strongest ninja that had _ever lived_—he knew of no one else who could track down and take care of the pair of Sakura and the great snake shinobi.

Naruto bowed. "Hai, Lord Hokage!" he respectfully exclaimed before heading off to the mess hall to sample some of the chef's legendary spiced ramen. He figured that Sakura, being a new, young demon rising through the ranks of demonkind by reputation, would attract a lot of attention once she got around the areas. He figured also that she might be able to recruit quite a few demons that had always wanted to start an uprising against the mighty Kyuubi, but did not, due to fear. He knew that all it took to start a demonic civil war would be a single spark. He had things to worry about that his best friend did not dream of. Sasuke knew of the demon fox and how powerful he had been politically, but he never understood completely the connections that he still had, and thus, did not have the responsibilities that his blonde friend had.

"Oh, Naruto?" Naruto turned around at his superior's command. "Make sure you come back to us in one piece. You will leave approximately seven hours prior to the majority of the attacking force of our village."

Naruto bowed once again, respectfully cried, "Hai, Lord Hokage!" and walked off.

Inside his personal chamber of the underground facility, Naruto sat at his bed eagerly chomping down on his ramen. He knew that his duties would be to destroy both Sakura and Orochimaru. The former had been a friend of his once, and had never left his mind as a friend, and possibly, a love interest. The latter was one of the legendary three shinobi who had been immensely powerful. Despite his hatred of the great snake shinobi, he had to respect the sixty some odd years of experience that the guy had. He was in the midst of thought and chewing, when two familiar presences approached him from behind. He whirled around with kunai drawn, ready to attack, but loosened his guard when he saw two familiar faces.

"Ah, Tokuubi! Naraabi!" he shouted in a whisper. "Don't sneak up behind me!" The two pups of mighty kitsune lord Kyuubi, in human form, stood at the other edge of Naruto's bed. They spoke to his mind directly by use of demonic power. It was quite apparent they had issues weighing down on them.

_We have information you might want to know about, Lord Naruto,_ Naraabi's true voice boomed inside the blonde shinobi's head. It amazed him how the kit's human form looked middle-teen-age human, but his voice was incredibly deep to the point of carrying. _Sakura has achieved alliances with friends of your one time arch-rival, Baakitu._

Naruto clenched his fist; such was bad news. That meant that she at least had a large gathering. Tokuubi did not have much better news.

_She has ten thousand shinobi from her village and the other one,_ Tokuubi mentally explained. _From Baakitu's men, she has about forty thousand demons willing to die for her._

'_FORTY THOUSAND_!' he cried in youko language, letting his surprise show. Quickly he recovered his composure, and returned to mental speaking. _Do you have any idea how hard it'll be to take on forty thousand demons!_

Tokuubi nodded. _That is why we want you to accompany us to the home of one of your greatest rivals, my lord._ Naruto did not like what was coming.

_He waits for your word, my lord,_ Naraabi chimed in with.

'I am not visiting Kojimokuto Kurama,' Naruto divulged in youko tongue. He knew the demon fox thief would not warm up to him due to the recent killing of Luuda and Ludo. 'I do not believe he would listen to me.'

'We threatened his life if he did not at least hear you out, my lord,' Tokuubi clarified. 'If you visit, he will listen.'

'Besides, my lord,' Naraabi entered, 'he has almost fifty thousand men in his clan thanks to his growing base of power. If he provides help, surely both his side and Baakitu's men will be greatly reduced in number. You could potentially become one of the dominant demon powers in the area once again.'

The prospect intrigued Naruto. 'Alright, you've convinced me,' he returned, 'but you'd better be right about all this.'

'We cannot lie to you, Lord Naruto.'

He knew that for a fact; however, he did not understand what business Sakura had with Baakitu.

* * *

Sasuke sat behind his desk in the Hokage's office. He had several hundred bits of information in the form of the most comprehensive pieces of documentation that could be gathered from spies within Arashi's government. He knew for a fact that the military force of Sakura had to be at least ten thousand, and that she may potentially have additional allies that he didn't know about. He knew for a fact that Orochimaru had been her primary instructor and later, her second-in-command. What he didn't know, and desperately wanted to know, was exactly how many additional forces she had that he didn't know about at the moment.

He also had, in his hand, a categorized list of all the necessary actions that would be required on his part in order to prepare the military forces adequately for a battle as complex as the war they were in. Very few Hokage's would have been able to hold it together in the face of such a war, and Sasuke prayed to God that he was one of those very few. _I hope you know what the hell you're doing, Naruto,_ he thought as he went over, in his mind, the strategy presented to him.

Clearing his mind, he meditated carefully on the battle, bringing to mind only those images that he believed would help him. He was, among other things, an expert strategist (although not so much as Naruto). It aided him to know that his forces had the best possible leadership and training on the battlefield in the form of the blonde shinobi.

* * *

One particular section of the forest saw very little light, and the trees, which had an unusual abundance of holes in them, made faint whistling noises whenever a strong breeze swept through the area. It was the perfect combination of these features which kept normal humans out of the forbidden section, and thus, allowed for earthbound demons to live in relative peace from humans. However, tonight, one particular demon, Kojimokuto Kurama, would see a guest that he had hated his entire life. The gray-haired fox youkai sat behind a large sectioned-off part of the forbidden area of the woods, which he had constructed as his personal quarters. He had very nearly the same level of power as Kyuubi, the mightiest of all kitsune, and thus, whenever the two would do battle with one another, every demon within a fifty mile radius felt what the hell was going on. Tonight, though, there would hopefully be only discussion and negotiation.

There stood one guard at the wall of uprooted trees which served as the borders of the mighty fox demon's private living quarters. Upon sighting Naruto and the two kitsune in human-like form which were the pups of the mighty demon lord, he instantly pumped a bit of his chakra into the wall to reveal the entranceway. The three stepped into the chambers, and the mystical-looking gray-haired kitsune stared at his enemy like a man obsessed.

'Well, I'll be _damned_,' Kurama swore in the youko language. 'You kill two of my fifteen children, you murdered one of my former wives six hundred years ago, and yet, you still stand before me. Let me guess, you come here to ask my assistance.'

Naruto cleared his throat; he knew he had to tread carefully, as he stood only a few steps away from wearing out his welcome. Sure, he had ensured that the two children of Kurama—Ludo and Luuda—would die, but they had involved themselves on the opposing side of the battle. He hoped he could use this tidbit to force the younger youko's aide. 'That may be true, Kurama, but there are bigger issues at hand than me and you,' Naruto explained. 'Besides, your children sided with Sakura, who has enlisted the help of one Baakitu Kosomiko.'

Kurama gritted his teeth. 'She enlisted that _BITCH_!' he shouted. Naruto smiled secretly; he knew he could immediately piss off Kurama by revealing that particular piece of info. It was a fact that Kosomiko, known only to a lot of demons by her last name, was one of the most hated demons of all time. She had been a former lover of the last king of demons before Kyuubi, and as such she had a gigantic following. Absolutely no one hated her more than Kurama, who had been personally betrayed by the bitch.

'You see, Kurama? I'm not lying. I need your help.'

Kurama sat and stared into his wine glass; this would be bad. If a demon on the order of Baakitu was involving herself in a war between shinobi villages in the human world, it would mean very little other than she was intending to expand her reign into the Earth realm. Both youko knew the ramifications of the female demon ruling over any section of the world larger than her hidden colony beneath the soil. 'Alright, Kyuubi,' Kurama said. He cut his hand with a sharp vine, and dripped a few drops of blood into Naruto's palm. 'I hearby swear, by punishment of death, to aide one Zaram Kyuubi in the war between Konohagakure village and Arashigakure village.'

'Thank you, my enemy.'

Kurama took a deep sip of his wine. 'There. I've made an unbreakable Demon's Blood Oath. However, this does _NOT_ mean that we are friends. Merely…comrades in arms for the time being.'

Naruto and Kyuubi's two children left the forbidden section of the woods. They knew they had to trek carefully in the upcoming weeks. It would merely require one spark to explode the powderkeg that was the days prior to initial combat.

'What is your command, Lord Naruto?' Tokuubi asked, always eager to serve her master and stepfather.

'You and Naraabi locate Orochimaru and bring him to me, _alive_,' Naruto explained. An evil grin made it onto his face. 'I have…a _special_ surprise awaiting him.'


	15. CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Toguro Sakura

By Moonraker One

CHAPTER THIRTEEN – Lurking About

Sand. It was the one earthen material that was omnipresent in this sector of the world. For the Village Hidden in the Sand, even the name had some kind of sand in it. Its leader, Gaara the Kazekage, had been away for some time now, attending a conference in the Mist village in regards to the war occurring between Konoha and Arashi. Most of his army was away from the village, fighting a large clan of mountain bandits that decided that the desert village would be prime targets for invasion. His brother Kankuro had the somewhat simple task of running things while he was gone, and due to the recent attacks on the village fortifications, he had sent extra shinobi to protect the outskirts from renegade shinobi and invading groups of bandits.

In one particular hut, the walls were lined with seemingly endless rows and columns of scrolls, some of which hadn't been opened in over fifty years. This was the primary library of Sunagakure, which was second only to Konohagakure as the most intellectual village ever. There were, at any given moment, seven jounin guarding the place, and six or so underclass genin working the registers, controlling who got loaned what. However, of the seven guards, three of them were assigned to the restricted area alone, where all the secrets that were unique to that one village were kept.

The wooden door creaked open as a feminine figure carrying an absolutely unruly fan stepped in out of the unusually powerful sandstorm that had been raging for the better part of three days now. Utilizing a good portion of her strength, she slammed the door shut, holding her body weight against it for a moment in order to ensure that it remain shut. The lady behind the desk bowed her head as she recognized a superior ninja entering the area.

"Lady Temari!" she announced. The instant she did, everyone present bowed their heads. "What brings you to the library?"

She headed straight for the restricted section. "I'm here to try and figure out what the hell's the deal with the wind that's been acting up for the past three days," she explained. "Things like this don't usually happen out here."

Two of the three jounin guarding the restricted area checked her chakra flow to ensure that it was not a disguised enemy, and then let her in. "You are looking for the scroll specifying wind jutsu, Lady Temari?"

She nodded. "Don't you think it's weird that we get gale force winds for almost three days in a row?"

He had much expertise in the field of wind jutsu. "Yeah, I think that's way beyond unusual, but who do you think has enough chakra to create gale force winds?"

She did not know. "I'm trying to find out." She stepped into the row where the specific scroll that detailed the more powerful wind jutsus was located. She was very nearly to the scroll when a loud roaring rumble preceded a rather violent shake that threatened to raise the building to the ground. When the library shoved an inch to the left very abruptly and very powerfully, then retracted the same direction, everyone was thrown off their feet onto the floor.

One jounin lifted Temari to her feet. "Are you okay, ma'am?" he inquired.

She pushed him aside and dashed to the door. She almost got there, before a powerful gust of wind on the other side ripped it, and its frame, off and spirited it away. She stood at the hole where the entrance had been and stared at the horrific sight in front of her, utterly disbelieving her own eyes.

_My God!_ she thought. _A tornado_? It was quite possibly the most unlikely thing ever; an F5 category tornado, tearing through the village. She had never seen one in her lifetime; so the gigantic swirling mass of wind and debris looked black from the matter it had picked up, and had light brown clouds of sand around its base. As it moved on at a slow speed, it yanked houses and huts from their foundations like an angry giant, fragmenting them and throwing their scattered remains all over as it did so. Just then, a large portion of the Kazekage's palace slammed into the upper part of the library's frame, crushing the roof as it pulled it off into the vortex. Almost as loud as the twister itself—this was quite possibly the loudest thing ever heard by an inhabitant of Sunagakure—was the screams of innocent people before they were sucked up and quickly ripped apart by the unforgiving winds.

Nearing the village's edge, the tornado began to fade and die. In doing so, its final act of power was to throw the tons of lumber and other debris in every direction like a manure spreader. What houses were spared the twister's power were annihilated by hundred-plus mile per hour flying debris.

Temari stepped out of the library, and surveyed the initial aftermath of what had just happened. She knew the twister had been caused by some_one_. A natural disaster of this magnitude did not happen way out here. But the damage had been done regardless. In almost all directions that the eye could see, there was nothing but unbridled destruction. It looked as if a huge hand had knocked everything over. Fragments of buildings lay strewn in every direction, bodies (what was left of them) were scattered at every corner, sometimes piled a foot high. It was unimaginable; the entire village had been completely destroyed, save for the library, which had lost a roof and part of its walls. A lone figure, protected from the storm by his chakra, began to walk towards the library.

Temari recognized him instantly. "KANKURO!" she shouted. She embraced him, just glad that he was alive. "How'd you get through it?"

"I saw it forming and had time to get in the storm shelter below the palace," he explained. "I don't get it! I got down there the moment I saw it and it had passed through by the time I was in the shelter! How can a slow-moving tornado destroy the village that quickly!"

She could not believe the sight, or the smell of the dead, and as such, she pitched forward and vomited all over the ground by her feet.

* * *

It was very nearly midday in one of the very few island shinobi villages of the world. The sun stood at its highest point yet in the sky. All over the Village Hidden in Mist, the people went about their usual day. In the center of the village, inside what was one of the largest gathering places for village officials, Kazekage of Sunagakure sat amidst the Mizukage and about a dozen of his best jounin watching over him. The discussion at hand was the situation regarding Konoha and its war with the Village Hidden in the Storm.

Gaara sat in his seat, almost looking regal compared to the worn-out looking Mizukage, who had defended himself thus far against six assassination attempts in the past month. The jounin watched more eagerly over their leader than ever, as he could no longer trust some of those who were his most trusted servants. "Lord Mizukage," the almost frighteningly calm leader of the sand village began. "I believe that we will soon be dragged into the war as it stands now."

Mizukage sat back, drumming his fingertips against each other. His obvious nervousness came from the fact that he did not want to be bound to aid Konohagakure as the sand village would be if it joined the fight on the side of the leaf village. "I understand that your village has always had a long history of uneasiness with Konoha, Lord Kazekage, and I would like to extend my village's help, but alas, I have many pressing issues to worry about." Furthermore, he did not like conflict. If there was any alternative to war, it would be the very first thing he would consider.

Gaara looked almost exasperated by the lack of help his village's second closest ally was. "Lord Mizukage, if you _could_, please consider this: Konoha is the most powerful of all the hidden villages. Although they are the most influential, if they were to collapse, I believe that anarchy would reign. We must help them."

Just then, a shinobi from the Hidden Village of Sand came bursting in through the front entrance to the meeting hall. "Lord Kazekage!" he shouted. "My lord!"

The leader of Sunagakure almost leapt to his feet. "What is it?"

"It's the village! It's been destroyed!"

The shinobi immediately captured his leader's full and utter attention. "What the _hell_!"

"A tornado, sir! A tornado ripped through the village!"

_A tornado?_ Mizukage thought to himself. _A tornado in the middle of the desert_? In all his years, the leader of the bloody mist village had never heard of such an occurrence. Tornadoes, as far as he knew, never formed in the desert because deserts were known for having little or no cloud cover. Before he could stand up to pledge his assistance to his fellow kage, he found himself thrown forward ferociously by a sudden rattling of the building. He attempted to stand up, but the rattling continued.

Just then, a huge chunk of the wall snapped like a twig and rocketed towards the upper balcony of the meeting hall. Gaara attempted to catch it with his sand, but it was moving simply too fast. In the time it took those in the balcony to blink, the section of wall slammed into them, crushing them and the surrounding wall instantly. The building's collapsing was prevented by the Kazekage utilizing his sand to protect its structure. One jounin ran to outside to see what had happened, but found himself sucked up by the mass of wind.

_How in the hell?_ Gaara thought. _The water around this island is too cold for a hurricane this powerful to form!_ He kept the shield of sand up, protecting the Mizukage and his protecting jounin. The rumble of rushing wind and water continued for several minutes, when it slowly died off. As the group underneath Kazekage's sand protection barrier exited the building to survey the damage, it was apparent the sheer undeniable fury of the storm; absolutely every part of the village had met with complete destruction.

Not a single soul outside Gaara's protection had survived. The Kazekage knew that something this powerful could not have been natural. _Something, or someone unbelievably powerful caused this. But I only know of a few who have this much chakra…_

WHAM.

Before he could complete the thought, before he even felt anything approaching, a powerful chakra blast struck him in the back of the head and knocked him unconscious. A separate figure took care of the others and scooped the targets, Mizu and Kazekage, onto their shoulders.

"How much is done?" the figure asked.

"We've only got one more target, and then we'll be done with part one," was the other's reply.

"What of Lord Hokage?"

"Lord Hokage won't be involved unless he _involves himself_."

"But…But Tokuubi! I thought our primary target was Orochimaru!"

"He _is_," the female child of Kyuubi replied. "But we also have other targets to bring to Lord Naruto."

"Are you sure we're doing it right? I mean, won't everyone catch on that these 'natural disasters' are being caused by us?"

Tokuubi rolled her eyes. "That's _the point_, Naraabi," she explained. "We're trying to make a statement."

"What statement?"

"That Lord Naruto is not to be fucked with, under any circumstances!" She motioned for her little brother to follow her. "Now come, Naraabi; we have to find Orochimaru and inform him that Naruto's plan is going well. That way he can regroup with us and all four of us can begin phase two of the plan. After all, Naruto is planning to mark the snake shinobi with a symbol that will empower him, making him a better servant." She focused her chakra in her feet, and all around her. "BUKUJUTSU!" she shouted, activating the jutsu of flight. With a gust of wind behind her, she took off at high speed through the air.

Naraabi did the same. "BUKUJUTSU!" he shouted, and rocketed off towards his sister.


	16. CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Toguro Sakura  
By Moonraker One

A/N: Thanks, loyal readers, for being patient with me throughout all these crises I've had. I must say, this story has been my most popular yet. And as much as I hate to say it, I can (finally) see the end in sight. Yup, you guessed it. We're in the final stretch. Just a few more chapters to go.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN – Man with a Plan

The darkness of being unconscious slowly began to crawl away as light returned to the eyes of Gaara the Kazekage, and he found himself in a mildly bright room. He looked around and saw with him, the Mizukage with which he was talking, and the two children of Kyuubi that he instantly recognized as the ones who knocked him out. His breathing slowed down as he realized that he was just fine, and he began to look around to see who else was in the room. He took notice of several higher level ninja from Arashigakure, but wondered what they would be doing in the same room with him. Leaders and high-ranking officials from many of the other villages nearby also were present.

"Hello, everybody," a voice called out. Everyone's attention turned to the door behind the circle of chairs. In walked two figures. One was a pale-skinned man with long black hair and earrings (which Gaara recognized at once as Orochimaru), and a blonde young shinobi who had been the mastermind behind the entire strategy. Strangely enough, Gaara could sense that the snake ninja had a great deal more chakra than before, and seemed to have more of a demonic aura than he usually had. It had to have been Naruto's work. "I bet you are all wondering why you've been brought here."

"You really have some nerve showing your face around me, Uzumaki Naruto," Mizukage shouted. "After destroying my village, you should be burned alive."

Naruto entered the circle of chairs in which all the high ranking officials from the various hidden villages sat. "Yes, I have done terrible things." He looked at each of them in turn. "Namely I caused the destruction of your villages by demon-made natural disasters. But, you must realize that I have done all of this, not because I hate you, but rather, because I love our way of life too much.

"Before you ask what I mean," he continued, speaking before one of the Stone Village leaders would have interrupted him, "let me tell you something. There is a war between Arashi and Konoha. This is one of the many wars that have gone on between the various hidden shinobi villages. We've had far too many wars. We are all ninja; why can't we get along? I'll tell you why: because we are separate villages." Orochimaru handed a scroll to each of the village leaders. "These scrolls outline my plan. I have always wanted to do what I've been doing over the past two days. It is my goal to once and for all end the wars between shinobi villages."

"How the hell do you plan to do that?" Gaara questioned. "Destroy us all?"

"As I previously said, Lord Kazekage, I do not wish to simply destroy all of Konohagakure's opposition. Rather, I have an offer to bring to the table." He pulled open a roll-up map of their small corner of the world and attached it to the wall. "This is a map of the various villages. If all of you were to ratify my strategy, we could prevent any future war between our villages. Simply put, my plan is to unite all hidden villages into one nation of united village-states."

"Unite us?" Mizukage scoffed. "What's in it for us?"

Orochimaru rolled in a television set and VCR from the back room. Playing the tape, everyone in the room saw the destructive power of an F5 category twister ripping through Sunagakure, annihilating all in its path. Some of the lesser-willed members of the room could scarcely stomach the sheer human carnage. "You have seen first hand the destructive power of Kyuubi's offspring. The tornado that wiped Lord Kazekage's village off the face of the Earth required only half the power of _ONE_ of Kyuubi's children." Naruto squinted to add effect. "Just imagine what _I_ could do."

Mizukage started at Gaara. "Lord Kazekage!" he shouted. "How can you negotiate with this lunatic! He killed your people!"

"I'm sorry, Lord Mizukage, you must have gotten the false impression that I give a shit about people," Gaara shot back. "There are exactly four people whose existence matter at all to me; two of them are my wife and daughter, and of the other two, I assure you that no one in this room is one. Let 'the lunatic' finish his offer."

"I will spill the blood of everyone in all the shinobi villages if I have to, but we will be unified by the end of the matter," Naruto guaranteed. "But if you all agree to ratify my plan, I assure you that no further innocent blood from your villages will be spilled."

Gaara stood up. "Naruto," he flatly stated, "your plan is brilliant, and you have Sunagakure's support. But let me make one thing perfectly clear: absolutely no one is going to remove me from my position."

"Oh not at all," Naruto reassured him. "Furthermore, all of you will still maintain your Kage positions, and Konoha's special services crew will aid in the reconstruction of your villages. Even Konoha will still have a Hokage. But there will be one to watch over and rule over all: _Dai _Kage. Me."

Gaara folded his arms. "If your plan is to work, Sasuke must die."

Naruto grinned. "Agreed."

With a handshake, the blonde shinobi had one very powerful supporter. He turned to the group. "Does anyone else see the logic of my plan?" Caught between a rock and a hard place, each and every leader agreed one by one to the idea of unity.

The officials from Arashi approached Naruto. "Lady Arashikage will never support your plan."

"Believe me, I will smooth out all the rough edges before I put the plan into effect."

The room emptied shortly afterward.

Orochimaru sat down next to his master. "That was absolutely flawless, Lord Naruto! I couldn't have done it better myself."

Naruto looked at the snake ninja. "Tell me, Orochimaru, the power I have will be enough. I know that for sure. But in case I die fighting Sakura, the mark I've placed upon you will ensure that you will have sufficient energy to finish what I've started."

Orochimaru bowed. "Thank you, Lord Naruto."

"Tomorrow you will set up the checkpoints for Arashi's troops to be misdirected," Naruto instructed. "And also, tomorrow, I will go straight for Lady Sakura herself. I want the area I specified completely clear of human or demon life for fifteen miles around the abandoned village. Understood?"

"Hai! It shall be done!"

"Thank you," Naruto said, and fell asleep hovering a few feet off the ground.

* * *

Approximately seven hundred troops moved across the flat terrain immediately outside the thick forest that obscured the entrance to their home village of Arashigakure. They moved quietly through the evening mist, keeping their footsteps gentle by means of animal fur attached to the bottoms of their sandals. A chilling wind gushed through the area, unnerving some of the lesser skilled shinobi as the large mass of human bodies moved onward. They did not move in one tight group, however, as they made sure to allow at least three bodies' distance between ninja.

One jounin stood at the head of the group, leading them onward with his keen sense of direction. He had seen more ninja wars than any of the gathered. He knew that the enemy could be sneaking up near them at any moment, so he was always on guard. Of all the group commanders from Arashi, he could very well have been the most skilled. It was his abilities that enabled him to be the most trusted of any of the group.

"This way," he whispered. The group then filed onward in the direction he pointed. He had a very apt ability to sense chakra patterns even if the enemy was not utilizing theirs. It was a talent reserved for the utmost in power. He was especially on guard, because they were approaching a part of the clearing where two separate groups of trees almost made the open clearing into a large oval blank spot in the thick woods.

A pair of hands reached out of one of the trees that made up the jagged boundary between the forest and the clearing. A lone shinobi, chuunin in rank, found himself yanked into the darkness of the forest and silently killed. The man next to him instantly took notice and shouted loudly in fear. One of the upper ranked silenced his scream with a kunai to his throat, but the damage had been done. The more skilled of the gathering knew that if an enemy was anywhere unprepared, they just took notice of the group. Everyone prepared their arms for combat, but they hoped they could keep moving.

It was too late. The night sky was so dark that when six hundred Konoha ninja filed out of the forest in a circular pattern around the Arashi troops, there was very little warning. The leaf village's attack came so quickly that almost seventy of the storm village's men were dead in the first two seconds of the attack. There was such speed and horrifying precision in the leaf shinobis' attack patterns that in the time Arashi ninja knew where their enemies were, their attack force had been reduced by twenty percent.

"Look ou…" one chuunin screamed, before a ninja-to struck off his head.

The group leader for Arashi's troops had his hands full. Being in charge of the movement of troops, he had almost a dozen shinobi on him at any given moment. Fortunately for him, he was one of the best that the storm village had, so he cut down one Konoha chuunin after another as they swarmed on him in waves. With each swing of his ninja-to, he took out anywhere from one to six of his enemy's troops. He had such skill that he made it through almost two dozen men without wasting a single bit of chakra. He took notice of the group leader for Konohagakure, and prepared himself as he fended off more enemy troops.

The leader of the attacking leaf village group sliced in half one ninja after another on his way towards the enemy leader. He would absolutely not let a single bit of damage come to him. When they came close to one another, they focused only on the opponent. The screams of men being cut down in their prime meant nothing, they were so focused.

Arashi's group leader grinned as he drew back his blade. "Hatake Kakashi," he acknowledged of his enemy. "So the great copy nin is one of Konoha's force leaders. I'm going to enjoy this."

Kakashi drew his own ninja-to in response "I never thought we'd be fighting each other, Ukamichi Zukore," he replied, taking notice of his enemy. He slid his headband off of his left eye to reveal his sharingan. He knew that soon they would be exchanging jutsus and he would require its use.

The first attack of the bout between them came when Zukore attempted a forward slash across his enemy's chest, and found it blocked by a downward thrust of his foe's sword. With an upward thrust Kakashi reversed the attack sent towards him and almost made a diagonal slash across his opponent's abdomen. It missed because his foe utilized a defensive stance at the last minute and used the force of his blade to push Kakashi's backwards. He managed to nail a sideways slash across the copy nin's chest, but a last minute concave bend prevented his chest cavity from being opened up. Instead, the attack only damaged his vest. In response, he parried two separate slashes that were intended to end the fight quickly, and had a moment's respite to respond with his own attack.

Zukore willingly sheathed his blade; Kakashi did the same as per mutual respect. Both knew that the point for utilizing swords had passed. Now the fight would be decided solely by their hand-to-hand skills. The second part of the combat opened up with a particularly powerful lightning jutsu on the part of Zukore that Kakashi barely had time to dodge. He copied it with his sharingan and could have utilized it, but instead decided to leap over his opponent for a backwards strike. This proved to be useless as his standing reverse side kick was easily blocked by a simple downward motion of his opponent's left forearm. He found a double-fisted strike land directly at his chest and as such, Kakashi was sent backwards several feet into a tree behind him. He barely had time to move aside as his foe sprinted towards him with almost inhuman speed to impale him with a huge shuriken. When Zukore missed and the blade got stuck in the tree, he ignored it and turned around just in time to receive a spinning roundhouse kick to the face. Unfortunately, he did not have time to recover and managed to get knocked on his back with a sweep kick.

Kakashi hastily yanked from his pocket a kunai and attempted to cut his enemy's throat, but missed and Zukore landed a jump kick directly to his opponent's face that sent the copy nin backwards. Zukore noticed that his enemy staggered a bit on landing; he took advantage of this opportunity by doing several rapid hand signs for one of his most powerful fire jutsus. With a blazing inferno in his hands, he prepared to incinerate Kakashi.

But he missed and only singed a large section of grass.

In response, his opponent landed a midair spin kick to the chest and followed it up with a powerful combination. It ended when a sweep kick allowed Kakashi to kick the man up into the air with a follow-up axe kick and then roundhouse kick the man into a tree behind him. Zukore getting stuck in the tree by the force of the impact gave the copy nin just the time he needed to prepare his trademark lightning blade jutsu. He dashed towards his opponent with a powerful gathering of lightning in his hand.

A loud explosion sounded as the lightning blade tore through feet of solid wood, cracking the tree in half and splitting Zukore's body in two.

A sword strike plunged through the heart of a shinobi, who screamed in pain before a separate ninja sliced off his head. This was the final member of Arashi's secondary eastern invasion force being killed. Seven hundred enemy shinobi had been taken by complete surprise by Kakashi's group, and eliminated without more than a couple hundred losses on Konoha's side. The first battle of what would be a longer war ended in complete success.

* * *

Orochimaru sat watching his lord and master sleep as he hovered a few feet off the floor. It made him slightly angry to think of all the hell he had to endure to aide the young shinobi in his conquest of the world. However, several reasons kept him from betraying him. Primarily, Naruto possessed a great deal more power and skill than he, and also, when he had summoned Kyuubi to the human realm all those years ago, part of his end of the deal was that he would serve the demon fox until one of them died. Furthermore, he would be guaranteed what he had longed for all these years. As such, a little suffering and embarrassment meant absolutely nothing to him.

_I swear that I will serve you, Lord Naruto,_ he thought as he stood watch. _Once I am Hokage, and you are Dai Kage, we shall stand triumphant._

He had, for the longest time, been a double agent; assisting in Sakura's training solely for the purpose of providing Naruto with more information. And, in that aspect, he had done exceptionally well; he knew the girl's abilities inside and out, and as such, so did his master. But a struggle between two demon powers the likes of what would soon happen had never been seen before on Earth. He worried not about the future of his master, but about the future of the world. Could the human realm _handle_ a massive one on one combat between two of the most powerful demons alive?


	17. CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Toguro Sakura  
By Moonraker One

A/N: This is NOT the final chapter. Also, you may wonder why I'm so quick to update now. That's because I work faster approaching the end of a story. Enjoy. This chapteris probably the crémé de la crémé of the story.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN – Two Tempests Collide

A figure strolled purposefully through the thick forest that stretched for hundreds of miles throughout the fire country. Slim and feminine, Sakura's base form almost looked puny compared to what she was fully capable of. She had not heard from Orochimaru in a matter of days and that most likely meant that he was dead. However it was not he that she had the luxury of worrying about; she had received word from her ally in arms and good friend Baakitu Kosomiko, one of the mythical three leaders of the demon world, that Naruto had decided to move towards the abandoned village of the light. The village of light had been cursed by a powerful demon long ago so that no human could live there without growing deathly ill and dying. So in effect it became a battle ground for powerful demon struggles.

She was fully aware of her maximum power, and against an enemy as powerful as her former friend she would need absolutely every drop of it. In order to win, she would have to put her entire future on the line and max out her strength. She did not know exactly how powerful Naruto was, but she estimated him to be too close to her maximum to count. Her livelihood as well as her village's future she had to risk. The few moments of fleeting peace she found in the whistle of the wind and the sashaying of the trees gave her respite.

_You will die at my hand, Uzumaki Naruto,_ she thought, focusing on her target and her goal. She had to kill him; emotion had nothing to do with it. Only necessity was what was relevant.

* * *

The prepared moment had arrived for a blonde shinobi, waiting at the middle of the once-massive village of light. At the peak of its military might the light village had been three times the size of Konohagakure. It also looked relatively unaffected because demon battles hadn't occurred in thousands of years here. But Naruto knew that a battle on the order of what would soon happen had never occurred, anywhere. Not only the village, but hundreds of acres of forest surrounding would probably be leveled. Orochimaru had redirected the troops leaving Arashigakure, so that they would miss the battlefield by a hundred miles. Servant demons that obeyed Tokuubi and Naraabi without question killed any living organism that approached the scene of the fight. 

Absolutely nothing would distract the combatants. This would be the prize fight. The winner would walk away with the ultimate purse: control of the known world. For the loser, parched lifeless ground would provide a burial site and broken buildings a headstone.

A feminine figure entered the village, and with a look of unrivaled determination on her face, strolled down the main street of the abandoned village hidden in light.

"I never thought this day would come," Sakura flatly stated.

Naruto smirked. "You've been quite elusive, my dear," he replied. "I'm going to enjoy this immensely."

A few moments of silence broken only by the movement of wind followed, which signified the calm before the storm.

Then a violent scream preceded a massive surge of power from both demons. Sakura, hitting the apex of her power, caused nearby buildings to collapse as her body nearly quadrupled in size. Huge plates developed on her shoulders from her altering bones, and her muscles reached log-width. Her clothes in tatters on the ground, she found herself not caring. Naruto almost fell backwards in surprise; she was _enormously_ more powerful than he'd anticipated.

It made his animal instincts activate. Letting a gigantic torrent of Kyuubi's energy flow through him, two distinct reddish-orange fox ears peaked through his blonde hair, and the trademark nine tails poked through his back, just above his rear. His shirt and vest shredded instantly, showing the youko markings that spread like a fungus across the entire surface of his torso and arms, originating at the seal point on his abdomen. His face markings became evident; his eyes a blood red with slits. Yet all these superficial changes meant absolutely nothing compared to the raw power being emitted. Their powers, while incalculable, were too close to know who was stronger. No.

This fight would be determined by skill.

Sakura analyzed his strength; she had never felt such evil, destructive aura in her life. Not even Orochimaru displayed the volume of dark chakra as Naruto gave off. This would certainly be a longer battle than she originally anticipated.

Staring holes through the other, both Naruto and Sakura dashed towards each other.

Naruto made the opening strike. He swung his right fist directly at her face; the blow was dodged. Sakura's response was one hell of a roundhouse that he ducked beneath. He retaliated with a straight punch to her chest that she bent concavely to avoid, then twisted left to let a side kick sail past her. She then aimed a kick directly at his face but he managed to block it with a downward push of his left forearm. It bewildered him the sheer amount of power that was put behind the kick. He attempted a sweep kick, unfortunately for him it didn't land as she leapt over it easily. In the air she spun her body around hoping to land a forceful spin kick to his chest but he ducked and hit her on the descent with an uppercut he lead into a roundhouse that smacked her straight in the face. With his other leg he landed a spinning roundhouse in the opposing direction; it knocked her violently left with such force that she crashed through about ten buildings. He bounded high into the air.

"KYUUBI FIRESTORM NO JUTSU!" Naruto shouted, forming hand signs faster than any person could see. He lifted his clasped hands above his head and gathered in the space of an eye blink, a house-sized fireball. In the manner of a baseball pitcher, he flung the massive ball of flame towards her impact zone; the instant it made contact with something solid, it exploded with such force that a tenth of the massive city was annihilated. He saw that she'd fled the wreckage of the buildings just before the ball exploded, yet he knew she had to have been at least slightly burned. What he didn't know was if it had really done anything. Landing, he scoured the scenery for sight of her.

"ICE DEATH BOMB NO JUTSU!"

He at once whirled around. A massive gathering of super cooled ice sailed towards him at hundreds of miles per hour. Shielding his hands with fire, he grabbed the ball (which was about thirty times his size) as best he could, and dug his heels into the dirt for friction. As he was pushed backward, he realized the futility of trying to stop the massive ice ball an instant before he sensed a tiny bit of her chakra being pumped into it. He made use of his enormous demon fox strength and threw the ball hard to his right so that it was at least fifty yards away when it exploded and threw him and lots of debris from the epicenter.

WHAM.

She stopped him in midair with a vicious knee strike to his middle back. He shouted in pain as he felt several of his vertebrae shatter under the sheer force of the impact. Fortunately, he was healed in a matter of seconds. The problem was that to heal such a deadly wound quickly required an unbelievable amount of his chakra; he could not afford to take another hit like that one.

"You a bit slow on the uptake, Naruto?" She sneered as he got to his knees. Before he could fully stand up, she forcefully kicked him straight in the chin, throwing him at least a hundred feet backwards. During his flight, she slammed her fist into his gut and attempted to drive him into the concrete wall of a building. However, he reversed her momentum and threw her into the building with tremendous force. The massive concrete structure shattered like glass instantly. Before she could remove herself from the debris, he grabbed her left foot and ferociously ripped her from it, and spun her around like a top by whirling in a circle. The instant before he let go, he drew a tracking symbol on her foot with his blood. Then he launched her with all his might.

"EEEEEEAAARRGGGH!" he shouted, gathering chakra on his palm until the bomb was the size of a small palace. "SYMBOL TRACKER BOMB NO JUTSU!" He shoved it into the air and it took off like a rocket towards the symbol on her foot.

"Oh shit!" she shouted, putting her arms in an X over her face so that the brunt of the blast would be taken by her arms, which repaired easily. She barely had time to do that, even.

Then an explosion akin to a megaton nuclear warhead lit up the sky in every direction. It had been a direct hit. He smiled; she wasn't killed, for she was far too powerful. What he was smiling about was that to heal from burns of that magnitude, she had to burn off an inhuman amount of chakra.

As tons of incinerated wood and rock fell from the sky, he saw his target with rapidly-healing burned skin, standing exactly a hundred feet from him.

"THIS ENDS NOW!" she screeched. "ICE BLADE OF POISONED CHAKRA NO JUTSU!" Her trademark killing technique, the ice blade of poisoned chakra, activated when a long ninja-to of ice formed in her hand. For a human, just being scratched by it meant instant death. For a demon as powerful as Naruto, all she had to do was plunge it through his heart; anywhere else would not be a mortal blow.

"I agree." He formed hand signs. "FIRE BLADE OF POISONED CHAKRA NO JUTSU!" He had a similar technique, except the blade was of fire.

A scream came before a charge that saw her aim her sword like a spear straight at his heart. He pointed his downward in a defensive stance and pushed her strike aside with a left motion. Spinning around, he swung for her neck but found his blade to meet hers in a perfect parry on her part. She sensed that he was gaining ground, so with a fast motion, she cut into his right leg before he could parry the blow, and jumped away after tapping her heel into the ground. He followed her. Where she landed, she tapped her left heel into the ground then leapt again. Once more he sprung after her, making a failed attempt at her neck while midair. She parried, and came down exactly ninety degrees apart from her previous impact zone. She again tapped her heel into the ground then hopped apart from her attacker.

"ARE YOU A RABBIT? QUIT FLEEING AND ATTACK!" She smiled at his cry for action. It made her happy to see him suffer impatience. He predicted her next impact zone and leapt there before her. She swung at his neck and missed because he blocked it, but she tapped her heel into the ground and, furiously aiming at his chest, forced him to duck so that she could leap away. "I'M GROWING TIRED OF THIS PATTERN!"

She tried to run away but he pointed his open palm at her, and, by clenching his hand shut, froze her with his chakra. "Now, no more rabbit." He began to walk towards her. "I'm going to slice you piece by piece, Sak…huh?"

After two steps his legs would not move. Something held them to the ground. "What the fuck?" He looked around and saw his error; the places where she tapped her heel into the ground formed a perfect square that he had, in his moment of arrogance, stepped into the exact center of.

He instantly realized his mistake. _She dug holes for chakra vines to grow out of! Oh fuck!_ She grinned wickedly as two additional vines shot from the other holes and grabbed his arms, pulling him down to a kneeling position. Despite all of his strength, he could not pull the vines free.

"Now look at the mighty Kyuubi," she uttered. "Now look at the strongest demon in existence."

For the first time in his adult life, his heart began to pound. _He could NOT get the fucking vines loose!_

"You've lost, Uzumaki Naruto."

_HE COULD NOT GET THE FUCKING VINES LOOSE!_

She lifted her blade above her head in jousting style, as good swordsmen do when they charge. "This world belongs to ME." He yanked at his chains, and they held firm.

Sweat poured from Naruto's entire body. His eyes held a look of sheer terror, the likes of which he had never shown before in his life.

"NOW DIE LIKE THE VERMIN YOU _ARE_!" Time itself froze as she charged towards him full speed. All of his limbs held firm, this was it.

His only hope—his right arm—was held as tight as any of them. He focused his entire body's strength on that one arm, and applied continual force against the vine, which would absolutely not budge. "eeeeaaAAARRRRGGGHHHH!" He did not let up, as painful as the effort was. His arm bones began to creak and moan under the immense pressure he put on them. But the vine did not budge as she was mere feet from him.

"Yaaahhhhhh!" her scream echoed as she came within a few inches of him at full speed; she lifted her blade high and aimed it straight for his heart.

Then she plunged it down with all her strength.

The vine refused to budge despite all his effort!

**K-SHUNKT**.

As the searing pain of her blade entered his chest cavity, the vine on his right arm snapped. Her deathly blow continued down through layer upon layer of flesh as he shoved his blade straight through her heart.

Both their eyes widened.

"Na…Naruto…"

She could not believe it. She missed his heart by a centimeter. Her poisonous chakra blade poured its deathly chakra into his lung; a blow that would not prove at all fatal to him.

His blow, however, _DID _hit her heart dead on. In fact, it hit the largest chamber. He could scarcely believe the moment as his taxed heart began to slow down. So frightened, he had been, that he failed to notice that he had pissed himself.

With her strength rapidly fading, her body returned to its slim state. She backed up as her field of vision blurred until she no longer had the strength to walk and collapsed into a sitting position against a tree. With his chakra poisoning and killing her major body systems one by one, she was dead. Her body just didn't know it yet.

He ripped his blade from her chest.

She began to cry. "Naruto…I…I…"

He cleared his throat. "You _love me_?"

She nodded. "I love you, Naruto."

He could barely speak. "Sakura…I…" he pondered the moment, and began to cry. "I…hate you so much!"

Not wasting a moment, he sliced off her head.


	18. FINAL CHAPTER

Toguro Sakura

By Moonraker One

A/N: I apologize in advance for those who hate the ending, but this was the final draft I decided upon about seven chapters ago. What you will read at the end is _NOT_ for the faint of heart.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN – Bad Blood; the Final Chapter

The central office of the Lord Hokage had seen somewhat a hectic past few days. With countless reports being fired back and forth, the validity and truthfulness of those reports constantly being challenged and then either confirmed or refuted, Sasuke had seldom seen a single moment of respite recently. Nonetheless, he held down the fort, so to speak, better than even he could have anticipated. One of former Hokage's concerns was that she would have to come out of retirement to aid the Uchiha in his daily tasks, but he amazed even her. However, one person on Sasuke's mind held precedence over all others.

Uzumaki Naruto.

_I pray to God you're doing your job well, Naruto, _Sasuke thought as he sat back, enjoying the few moments of peace that he had in between countless decisions of large magnitudes. Sipping a small glass of wine he leaned back in his chair and concentrated on the patterns on the ceiling. The wavy designs in the wood allowed him to relax before he would be forced to make yet another huge change in plans. News of the first major series of battles had all been somewhat good, ranging from the surprise victory that Kakashi's unit pulled off, to the three-hour debauchery that Gai managed to turn around into an upset victory for Konohagakure.

"Lord Hokage!" As Sasuke heard one of the chuunin that acted as his personal secretary call out his official title, he rolled his eyes and snapped to attention in his seat. The young journeyman ninja stood firm at attention with a piece of paper in his hands.

"Yes?" Sasuke uttered, slightly peeved at the inevitable interruption of his relaxation.

"Sir!" the young chuunin stated, making sure his tone of voice was loud enough to be heard. "We have new reports that indicate that Arashi's troops are being diverted away from the main cluster of their forces!"

Sasuke, who had previously been only partially paying attention due to exhaustion, practically leapt forward in his seat. "What?" he shouted. What the news meant was that someone, or something, had segmented the main group of the enemy's attacking force and thus, separated their war power. If he could take advantage of that and send troops to destroy the separated group, it would possibly mean a very quick change in the tide and force a victory for Konoha much sooner than expected.

"That's not all, sir!" continued the journeyman ninja. He began reading off of his paper. "Two of their major allies, Village Hidden in Sand and Village Hidden in Mist have been eradicated!"

"_Eradicated!_" screeched Sasuke. He sat open-mouthed. The destruction of a complete shinobi village had not occurred in centuries. He cleared his throat. "H…How much, eradicated?"

The chuunin bowed his head a moment. "Completely. Destroyed by a tornado and a hurricane, respectively."

The Lord Hokage sat back in his seat, wide-eyed at the impossibility that was the destruction that he had just been informed of. To his somewhat vast knowledge of nature, a tornado over Sand Village almost never happened because of the lack of cloud cover. Also (although he was not perfectly sure of this fact), he believed that the water surrounding the Mist Village island possessed too little heat to allow a powerful hurricane to even form. But precisely who was powerful enough to generate such a force, that bit of data slipped his mind. He knew that Naruto had the power, but he was a loyal servant of Konohagakure. Maybe the two children of Kyuubi? No, he remembered. They were loyal to Naruto.

He turned to his subordinate ninja. "This information, while extremely important, will not impact our war plan," he decided. "Have you any word from Kakashi's group?" The ninja was a few steps ahead of his master's will and presented him with a message from the front line.

"The primary group took out a chunk of the opposition forces in the first major sneak attack of the war, but then found themselves going around in circles for about three days. He reports that they all had to rest before continuing, then on the second day there was a hell of an energy storm inside the borders of the abandoned Village Hidden in the Light." Sasuke thought a minute of his servant's words; for it to be "a hell of an energy storm," it had to be Naruto versus Sakura.

"Have we received any word from Uzumaki Naruto?"

The shinobi shook his head. "Naruto-sensei has not been heard from. Sorry."

Sasuke rapped his fist against his desk. "Damn." Without even looking up from his desk he waved off the chuunin. "That is all, you may go now." He picked up the radio on his desk. "Lord Hokage requesting Special Services."

A crackle preceded a young feminine voice. "Konoha Department of Special Services, how may I help you, sir?"

"Set up lookouts around the perimeter of the village; if Uzumaki Naruto is spotted, I want to be the first to know. Also, I require that he be seen by Psy Ops nin team as soon as he comes within ten meters of the border of the village."

"Affirmative, sir." With a blip, the voice disappeared.

* * *

A group of four traveled through the forest, along the mostly hidden route that led straight into the northern entrance of Konohagakure. Of them, two were the children of Kyuubi, who each had their own instructions to hover nearby their master in case of his requiring them. The other was Orochimaru, the great snake shinobi who was given instruction to sneak into Konoha head of the rest and get close to Sasuke in preparation for the final part of a long plan. Naruto himself, the fourth and most powerful member, had recovered almost all of his chakra stores from the battle against Sakura, and the military forces of Arashigakure had surrendered to him and been re-routed back to their home village without further encounter with Konoha troops.

"My lord," Orochimaru said to Naruto, "are you absolutely sure it is time?"

Naruto grumbled. "Orochimaru, you of all people should know that I have the perfect time for everything. This is the perfect time for betrayal."

"What will become of the forces of Konhagakure?"

"They will be re-routed so as to be carefully covering the same ground for a four day period," he explained. "Within which we will spring our trap."

Orochimaru looked at his young master; for the better part of a decade, the sannin had served the blonde shinobi. Finally, he knew, his dream of conquering the most powerful of the five shinobi villages would be coming true. _I certainly hope all goes well, my lord_, he thought. As per his prior orders, he separated from the other three and headed towards the secret entrance that only he knew of, which would lead straight into the main complex of the Hokage.

"Naraabi, Tokuubi," Naruto said to the two pups of Kyuubi, as they helped him walk on. He knew of his condition, but he predicted that still he should be stronger than any ninja of human origin. "I burned off a huge chunk of my overall chakra fighting Sakura back in the village of light. You two will be absolutely essential to my plan. Okay?" Both of them nodded.

"Trust me, my lord," Naraabi said, his red hair waving in the wind. "We will not let you down."

"My brother and myself are more than willing to go any distance for you," Tokuubi reassured.

Their trek had reached one of the points around the rim of the forest where it ended and Konoha began. One of the persons manning the lookout post spotted his superior shinobi and radioed to Sasuke. _This is IT_, Naruto thought. _THIS is what I've waited for_.

* * *

Sasuke strolled down the halls of the main palace, thinking of what had been occurring that day and of revisiting his best friend and comrade in arms at the entrance, with hopeful news of further successes on the battlefront. It was a short walk from the Hokage's palace to the northern entrance where the lookout had spotted the jounin. Close to the end of the fourth floor of the palace where the steps led downward, Sasuke's radio crackled.

"Lord Hokage," the voice said, "the Psy Ops team has analyzed Naruto-sensei and found him to be fine. He should be very close to the palace already."

After replacing his radio at his hip, Sasuke whirled around with kunai drawn and sliced the throat of a shinobi who had been following him. The body hit the floor with a resounding thud; he could not mistake the look of the person. _Hmm,_ Sasuke wondered. _This is one of Orochimaru's thugs._ He put himself on guard. _The man himself must be here._ He barely dodged a shuriken after hearing a distinct (yet very quiet) whistling sound of metal moving through the air. Who should be standing directly across from him down the hall than the evil incarnate.

"Well, well. If it isn't Orochimaru," Sasuke uttered, a look of sheer disgust on his face.

The great snake shinobi sneered. "You have _absolutely_ no idea what is about to unfold, Sasuke-_kun_," he replied. In a sarcastic fashion, he corrected his mistake. "Oh, I'm sorry; Hokage-sama. You know I was once a candidate."

"Leave it be, you bastard. You never would have made a good Hokage." Sasuke heard footsteps charging towards him from behind. Taking only a brief instant to see, he looked through the corner of his eye so he could keep look on Orochimaru. "Naruto-san! Help me out here! The traitor's in the village!"

Naruto stood next to Sasuke. "Orochimaru-san, you are, without a doubt, the most evil person ever to come out of this village." He turned to his best friend. "But you, Sasuke-kun, are one of the most incompetent Hokage's ever."

Sasuke turned to his friend in confusion…and found a kunai shoved directly into his heart faster than he could blink. With a look of sheer confusion on his face, as the sharp blade tore through his flesh painfully, he mouthed, "Why?" Blood seeped out of his mouth. Naruto collared his former friend and pulled him an inch from his face. "You always wanted Konoha!"

Naruto grinned wickedly. "Yeah, you're quite right," he uttered. "I DID want Konoha." His smile seemed to gain evilness. "Now I want the entire world, unified under my rule!" Utilizing a large portion of his remaining strength, he shoved his former friend through two feet of concrete and drywall, leaving Sasuke to fall from four stories up.

"You've done it, Naruto-sama!" Orochimaru stated. Before he had much chance to celebrate, though, Naruto delivered a sharp kick to the knee of the sannin, fracturing it and bending the joint in the wrong direction. Next he shoved a blade into the ninja's shoulder, hitting the one nerve near the base of the neck that would prevent moving.

"I've incapacitated the traitor!" Naruto shouted, as ANBU came clamoring towards them upon hearing the commotion. "Take him away!"

Orochimaru stared in disbelief at his own betrayal. "You asshole! I…!" Swearwords aplenty were heard as the snake ninja was carried off to the dungeon. The ANBU leader put his hand on Naruto's shoulder.

"Excellent job, sir!" he commended. "You've taken out Orochimaru!" He looked through the wall's hole and saw the damage. Respectfully, he bowed his head in sorrow. "I weep for Lord Hokage."

Naruto followed suit. "As do I." Tokuubi and Naraabi followed closely behind their master, cloaked by a genjutsu illusion, ensuring that the next phase of the plan was to go down properly.

* * *

Exactly two hours later, in the chamber of the ruling party of Konohagakure, who had the responsibility of choosing the Hokage, Uzumaki Naruto stood honorably as the man who took down one of the most villainous traitors the village had ever known. Also, he had ended the war between the leaf village and their former closest ally. The eldest of the ruling committee smiled as he found the hero of the village to be the only piece of good news left as Sasuke had died.

"So, Naruto," he began, clearing phlegm from his throat. "Your record stands for itself; hundreds of missions completed with no problems whatsoever, and countless rescues of our shinobi trapped in enemy territory. Furthermore, you have recently taken down the primary traitor to our village and ended a war that would have required a significant number of losses on our side."

Naruto bowed quickly, standing at attention. "Thank you, sir," he agreed.

His facial expression turned gloomy. "However, because of what happened to Lord Hokage…" he trailed off.

The blonde shinobi adopted a similar expression. "No one feels Lord Hokage's death more than I," he offered. "I just wish I could have eliminated Orochimaru sooner."

One member of the committee motioned at the door behind Naruto. "Well, perhaps you should tell that to him yourself."

The door blew open. Naruto could not have been more frightened at the sight he saw.

"You thought you had all the bases covered," Sasuke quipped.

With wide-eyed disbelief he stared at the perfectly-unharmed Uchiha. "I…IMPOSSIBLE…!" He _knew_ that he had shoved his former friend through a wall to drop four stories; how could he possibly have withstood?

The Uchiha raised his eyebrows. "Is it?"

"You…you fell from four stories up!"

"Thanks to Tsunade-sama giving her life, I have my own back." By means of a forbidden jutsu, Tsunade had sacrificed her life to heal the fatal wounds, because she knew that only he could defeat Naruto.

Naruto yanked from its holster on his back his ninja-to. "Well then, perhaps I should finish what I started." Before he could do anything further, though, a sword went directly through his heart.

"Not this time, Naruto-_sensei_," a small voice called out. Taken by surprise, he turned around. What he saw had to be the very last person he'd expected.

"N…Nuuto?"

"That's right," Sasuke flatly stated. "You couldn't sense his presence because our chakra's combined made his seem like nothing in comparison. Oh, and that invisibility jutsu you taught him? It turns out he _wasn't _as bad at it as you thought." The father of the team tore into Naruto's left leg with his sword, causing the knees to buckle.

As he was forced to a kneeling position he looked at the father and son team. Blood poured from his mouth as his body heat drained away. "You both may kill me, but you will never…!"

Sasuke was in no mood to take chances; he sliced off the traitorous blonde ninja's head before he could finish the sentence. "Thank you son," he said to the young Uchiha. "You don't know how much help you were." He ruffled his son's hair. "You make me proud." Suddenly the room's air shifted. A genjutsu fell, revealing what had been different.

Naruto was not the man killed; it was Orochimaru.

"What the…?"

Sasuke's sentence was cut off by a sword passing through his neck instantly. In the same stroke the two children of Kyuubi had decapitated all the members of the ruling committee. He knelt in front of Sasuke's young son, covered in his father's blood. "I'm sorry I had to do that, it's just that I couldn't have anything interfere with my plan." He caught a glimpse of his closest ally, Orochimaru, who had perished for the cause. _Although I've betrayed you, you still were loyal to me, even in dying moment._ He thought. _Thank you, my greatest pawn._

Nuuto could scarcely blink as he stared at his headless father, lying motionless on the floor. His former mentor's face held a perfectly calm, fake expression of friendliness. He never would forgive him. "N…Na…Naruto…" he stammered through the tears, "…sensei, you…you killed…my daddy…"

He then silenced the child's crying with a single motion of his blade.

* * *

FOUR MONTHS LATER

The sunlight peered through the morning window of the Hokage's palace. With the coming of the morning, he wiped the sleep from his eyes and stepped out of bed.

Hinata rose from her sleep. "Naruto-kun," she uttered, throwing herself into his arms.

She smiled. "You did it?"

He stroked her hair. "It's done."

"Then it is ours."

Walking towards the window, he pulled Hinata closer to his side. "No further resistance will be posed." With a warm embrace, he kissed her cheek.

She leaned her head against his chest. "I love you, Naruto"

"I love you too, _Orochimaru_."


End file.
